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The sparkle in your eyes keeps me alive.

Maybe. He played Briere at C for years even though he was better suited as a W in his own end. Expect the preference is to keep Thompson at W, but could see him move back in a pinch. If he does move back to C would expect to see him teamed up with someone like Tuch that is defensively responsible and oftentimes is the 1st F back into the zone. Similarly to how Briere played with Hecht and then as a Phlyer with the one we try not to speak about here.

4th youngest as a 2nd year player. That’s insane.

Unless Lindy Ruff gets fired, Tage isn't going back to center.

How about instead of gold, red, blue, and orange they go with gold, red, blue, and black? Not sure where you'd have the 100 level split between red and gold; but expect black works better than orange and it fit with the historical blue & gold and red & black.

A very simple thing that would've been nice would be renaming it the KeyBank Aud. Also when they redo the seats do them up in the old colors/pattern of the ones in the Aud, I'd rather that than a clean but drab design that is done these days

The beauty about this staring at a piece of paper is that you can comfortably say each player is a good, probably above average option in their slot.

The takeaway in reading this thread is that there are many combinations that make sense. My preference would be for Tage to be 1C, Norris the 2C and McLeod the 3C. It’s also going to be interesting to see how our forwards get slotted for the top three lines. Currently, my first line preference is Zucker/Tage/Tuch. Needless to say, this is subject to change. This is going to be an interesting camp.

Bite your tongue. Foligno was BORN a Sabre. He hasn't been there 20+ years yet, it just SEEMS that way. He'll always be a Sabre IMHO. Even though his brother was never officially a Sabre, will give him partial credit as one too. That whole family is Sabres. Even their sister is a Sabre. 😉

Am slowiy coming around to being optimistic about Norris and Thompson being paired together. Still not sure about how having the 2 shoot first players together will gel, but they will likely predominantly have Dahlin on the ice with them, and that is one very good playmaker that could be feeding the puck to either.

Part of the reason the building has always been a bit on the quiet side, even when it was packed and the fans were into the games, is the ceiling is REALLY high up relative to where the seating bowls stop. IMHO, a big part of the reason for this is the same company that designed the old Staples Center in LA with its 3 levels of luxury boxes also designed the MMArena. It was a cookie cutter design and came cheap - a hallmark of Larry Quinn's direction. And the original horrible color scheme in the building is courtesy of Dougie Moss's girlfriend. The current color scheme is actually a significant upgrade over what they started with, sadly. As for whether there will be upgrades or not to the building, know for a fact that they were looking at some very radical revisions to the building back prior to covid hitting. How serious they were about the revisions, don't know. But they did spend money on the studies. Would agree that a new building likely isn't in the cards anytime soon. Caveat to that belief, if the pipe burst is indicative of the overall state of the plumbing (and maybe even the electrical, HVAC, structure, etc.) in the building, they may have no choice but to do a new building sooner than later. Thaaaaaaannnnnks, Larry. But hey, you got the buidling constructed on time and under budget. Who cares if the darn thing falls apart within 40 years? Heckuva job there, Quinny.

That’s the Peterka deal and the debate about Benson replacing him in a nutshell isn’t it? I know people hate +/- but it shows Tuch +16 and McLeod +13 won their battles, Cozens -13 Quinn -18 did not while Tage -2 and Peterka -1 were a draw Switching to xGoals %, The Sabres had 4 lines that were “good” 2 of them had Tage and 3 had Benson. Maybe these are the forwards who create winning matchups and the ones who should be seeing the toughest ice time? Not sure exactly what you are envisioning here, but agree coaches and fans need to take a harder look at lines in terms of how they match up. I also think some of the moves they’ve made are based on Lindy wanting players who better fit what he wants to do.

Thanks for the response. With respect to the football stadium in Orchard Park, from everything I read about it outlived its life span and the cost of upkeep wasn’t worth it. It was better to apply the upkeep money to a new facility.

I think Norris is smart enough and fast enough to take advantage of the holes Tage creates offensively and help the line in its own end. He reads the play at a high level. Hes just not a creative puck handler and a distributor in the Mittelstadt or Connolly mould. Thing is Tage doesn’t need that type of centre. He wants to be the guy on his line carrying the puck. He’s a bit of a unicorn in the way he creates offence for himself. There’s a reason JJ Peterka went from 22 assists to 41 last year. Jeff Skinner had never topped 30 assists in his career. Put him with Tage and he suddenly had 47. Norris can have a career high in assists without changing a thing about his game simply chipping pucks in Tages direction.

I don't have good insight into the arena. No doubt that updates and clean up is needed on the inside. To be honest, it was never an impressive place. The design has mostly poor sightlines, the seats seem far away from the ice. The concessions and restrooms are below par. To me, only the 200 level is decent. The place has always seemed dark and dingy, and because they have sucked for so long it is usually quiet in there relative to other NHL rinks. The scoreboard is much better now. The roof was a must do and that repair was late. The bad seats - we are probably stuck with them. Better paint, better lights, being cleaner, and better concessions does not seem that hard. I don't think you will see any funding for a new arena for a very long time. There is still angst on building the new football stadium with 40% state and county tax funding.

First thought: Wow, that's a lot to pay for a 4th liner. (re: Rossi's playoff usage) Second thought: That is an easily traded contract. All the local media in Minnesota have been discussing Rossi as a trade target for 2 seasons, knowing that Guerin doesn't like his size at center. Rossi was BPA but didn't fit the team's thresholds. Guerin is an interesting GM. They had the massive buyouts of Suter/Parise that were as much as 14M against the cap during the flat cap seasons, never seem to show any care in the center position (Eriksson Ek is a very good defensive-first center who is playing a line too high on the Wild every single year), and still managed to make the playoffs 4-of-5 seasons. They got an All-Star for a 5th round pick in Kaprizov and a defensive-minded 1st pairing D from his very first shift in Faber. And the fringes of the roster are ex-Sabres: Bogosian, MoJo - re-signed again!, and Aube-Kubel, with Hinostroza and Cal Petersen in the minors. (At this point, it's hard to call Foligno an ex-Sabre he's been a Wild so long.)

As you yourself note that he is a confident kid. You act as if he was an overwhelmed player in the NHL. That was far from the actually case. As a player he was an asset and not a drag.

How they compose lines to match opponents top6-lines bothers me. They didn't get the job done last season and I think they still are too unexperinced this season. Do they have lines that can shut down other teams top lines? My answer would be No.

Idk what damage a player creating at his rates at 19yrs old has. Once Buffalo transitions more to the cycle game they should be playing, probably this season, we'll see a jump. He didn't do that last year because Lindy Ruff didn't give him enough time with good players or enough toi in general. Zach Benson will be fine.

Zach Benson was the 4th youngest NHL player last season. Despite that, he produced at good rates and was borderline elite defensively.

Over

Tage isn't a playmaker either regardless of stats. I don't really know what Norris will bring them but I believe he can motor (if healthy) and will do better with more open ice. I am simply reluctant to have youngsters in key offensive roles. It hasn't worked yet and it won't work now.

You don’t get it. Benson isn’t being forced to play a different way: this is how he plays, how he has always played. This is how he scored points as a junior and how he will score points in the NHL if and when his strength and his shot mature to an NHL level so he can finish what he started. You talk like there’s a JJ Peterka skill set in there that’s been stifled. That’s not his game and never was.

Yup. "Classic" lines have a scorer, a playmaker, and a forechecker on them. And on good teams, at least two of the top line's players can typically take on more than one of those roles.

I'm setting the o/u for Benson point total at 39.5. Takers?