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Disagree on Garland’s long term deal not aging well. Strong analytic guy with good middle 6/borderline 2nd line production. Getting paid $6M through 2031, by 2031 $6M will be the new $3M-$4M. Kulich for Garland straight up is a trade I would take. Garland is a guy that signals to your locker room that you’re taking competing seriously, and even if it doesn’t immediately pay off in playoffs this year it’s still a guy that helps long term. To shape this roster into a more serious NHL team, eventually one of Kulich/Östlund/Rosen will need to go for a veteran guy that helps immediately and Garland is one of those guys. Most importantly, he’s one of those guys and he doesn’t have trade protection. I doubt Adams would do it because he’s a lame duck, but it’d do wonders for this team.

While I wish he provided more offense, Mal is a valuable member of the team. Penalty kill, eating up 4th line minutes, and SMASHING everything he sees wears out an opponent. His game is just fine with me.

If the Sabres are losing as much money as you claim (not challenging you on that issue), then a factor in the supposedly inadequate return is the product that he has provided since he bought the team. You don't think that if the Sabres were a serious team during much of his tenure the revenue flow wouldn't be a lot higher? In any business endeavor, a poor product is usually not going to be as profitable or even profitable. And when you are in the entertainment business, the quality of the production certainly is a factor when the receipts are tabulated.

https://www.usahockeyntdp.com/news_article/show/1350482?referrer_id=3865497 The other link had tons of stuff on team CHL, this one is team USA.

Just put a tarp over Rich, throw up some new Jumbotrons around the stadium, and vu la, you have the largest NHL arena in the league. Innovation!!! 😂

They aren’t losing $300M in actual dollars in any scenario you can lay out.

Garland and Sherwood have no current trade protection. Garland has a long deal that won’t age well though. Forbort (injured at present) might be a good 7th D. Other than those 3, all of their vets have trade protection or injury history (Chytyl). I think Sherwood and Forbort would be good adds (I don’t know if Forbort’s injury is long-term serious).

For those wanting an explanation, you are looking at standard deviations away from the league mean. Doan is just behind JJP in gf/60 but is actually creating far better in xGF/60. This is probably happening because Peterka is a better shooter and does a lot of damage off the rush. Whereas Doan is more of a cycle player and the Sabres like to take shots off that this year. Doan's defensive metrics speak for themselves. He's almost 3 standard deviations away from the league average in CF which again makes sense because he is cycling the puck and they are getting shots.

A normal investment does not have you losing money every year though. From the time he bought the team to 2019 the team lost 300 million. There is not a scenario where the sabres are profitable. Complain about Pegula at your own risk. If he sells it will be to someone looking to move the team.

No doubt about it that the Sabres have to avoid extended losing streaks to become a playoff team. But even without such a streak, if this team can't play better on the road, it will be too much of a challenge to overcome. Buffalo is 8-4-2 at home and 1-5-2 on the road. That home/away disparity is simply not good enough to put this team in a position where it needs to be. Toronto's record is 8-4-3 at home and 1-6-0 on the road. Both of these team are dealing with the same road record problem. We need to get our record around .500 to put us in a position to put us in a realistic position to make the playoffs.

Thanks, the media guide had a ton of info. https://media.chl.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/29133708/2025-CHL-USA-Prospects-Challenge_TeamCHL_PlayerProfiles-v1.0-October-28-2.pdf

I remember that game well because just seconds before that play I said to my wife 'Why the fuk do the Sabres have their slowest player on the ice at 3 on 3??!'. Oops.

Tons of scouts in Calgary for the CHL vs USA prospects game tonight. Game two tomorrow in Lethbridge. https://chl.ca/prospectschallenge/

Agree with Tommy Webs here. And to what MJD is saying, think about Pegula owning this team for 15yrs. He invested 200 million initially (I am using easy math) and it is now worth around 1.4 billion. A normal investment doubles every 7years (roughly) so that would be 2 doubles for that 200 million or 800million, but instead he has an asset worth almost double that. That is great ROI. And back to Websters point, let's say Pegula is losing money, first that would be a big tax write-off but then let's do fun math and say he loses 10million a year on the Sabres which I highly doubt. So to date he has fake lost 150million in real dollars but his asset is still worth almost 3.5times what he paid for it. Pegula even if he were losing actual cash each year on the Sabres (again, I agree with Webster that this is doubtful), he would still be up because the value of the team has gone up. Terry can take out low or no interest loans against the value of that asset for cash when he needs it. On top of that, we know the Bills are making money and will make a ton more money once the new stadium opens. The super wealthy view sports team as an asset, like stock in a company. They are currently a great asset to have because they are almost finite (sure expansion happens now and again but not really) and their value goes up every year with merch sales, price increases, revenue sharing, etc... A roughly 350% increase in 15yrs is pretty damn good. On top of all that, you have a shiny toy that when it wins, you get to brag to your rich buddies about and even when it loses, you are still 1 of 32 owners of this thing. Pegula can lose a few million a year on the Sabres because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter at all to him. I do hope, that once the financial stress from the new stadium is behind him (he knows the final cost and has it paid), he starts opening up for both teams a bit more. Still, the guy is worth around 9 billion dollars with about 3/4 of that worth tied up in the Bills and Sabres. He's got more money than God.

Cooley had 4 goals last night for Utah, 2 were in an empty net. I was surprised to Peterka with 0 points. It appears he was not playing with Cooley and Guenther on the first line right now. He played with McBain and Crouse on the 3rd line, Utah has been looking at other line combos.

And if we lose one or two it doesn't mean the season is over. Just don't fall into a losing streak. Since the COVID shortened season 91 (.555) points was enough to get in twice, 92 (.561) once and 100 (.610) once. With 60 games remaining, Buffalo needs 69 points to reach 91. They need to maintain a .575 pace to achieve that.

I don't think you can underestimate the McDavid factor. There has to be some cross marketing deals the Oilers take advantage of. Oilers fans travel well. Right up there with Leaf and Rangers fans. They also have some history. History seems to be important to valuation. All 6 of the original 6 teams are in the top 10 in valuation. Building generations of fans helps over time among other things. It's interesting to see how low the 2 time Stanly cup winner Panthers are. Even though they are a great team they either don't have the flashy player to make the highlight recaps or the team history to support the demand for the product. As far as over all team valuations go you would think there would be a point where they would top out but I am not so sure. I recently read a book titled Rock and Roll is here to pay. It was published around 1975-76 and went over the economics of the music industry from early in the century to that time period. What was thought of as a lot of money then seems so quaint right now. A rock and roll band might get 20 grand to play a show at the Aud back then. The point that struck me though was how human economics were evolving. No longer needing every cent for food, clothing, shelter, and transportation the US population slowly began to have money to spend on records, stereos and concerts. The obvious parallel is to sporting events. Tickets that coast 100's to thousands of dollars are now the norm to a portion of the population. The economic cycles will stunt the growth I would think, but the demand is there.

The rare win win trade. At least so far.

I do sorta... Pegula needed 2 things to break his way for that. First he needed Hochul to be governor with that money from the Seneca's in hand and second I think you needed a Josh Allen level QB to give everyone that warm fuzzy feeling. Glad it is happening because the Ralph was rough. I have been in college stadiums far nicer. For the Arena, I am curious what their report will find. Can they simply upgrade what is there or is it really such a dump it cannot be fixed. Pegula loves himself some deferred maintenance and it caught up to them.

Fair, I'll admit that I use 0.600 because it's easy and it's all-but guaranteed to make the playoffs and not come down to tie breakers and whatnot, but it is 3 more wins than 0.560 at the end of the season. Nonetheless, after 22 games the Sabres do not appear to be able to maintain 5-4-1 to 6-4-0 play, so something has to change. And I'll be as negative as I want, lol.

Sabrespace has heard this story before, but about a year after No Goal, I met Brett Hull at DFW Airport. He was waiting for his bags at the carousel. So I approached him and we talked about the just complete season for a few minutes. Finally I asked him about the Cup winning goal. He said he would have liked to score a highlight reel goal, but what happened happened, so what else could do? The refs said it was a good goal; he couldn't give it back. He said all this season, lining up for faceoffs and stuff, opposing players would nudge him and say, "That wasn't a goal, Hull!" Then I asked him for his autograph. I said I didn't have anything to sign, so could he sign his boarding pass? I told him my nephew, Matt, played hockey, so address it to him. So he wrote, "To Matt, Good luck in hockey, Brett Hull" I thanked him and said I would give it to him when we went up to visit my family in Buffalo that summer. When I said Buffalo, he visibly winced. Overall he was nice guy to talk to, approachable. He caught a lot of ***** for No Goal.

You may have had a few more looks at Piip than myself if you follow Liiga, he's just kinda there. He isn't bad but from my little fact finding mission, there just isn't anything that screams top 10 pick let along top 5. At this point, I would put him in that 20-40 range I suppose. Am i missing something?

I give Pegula credit for one thing, a new stadium. Of course, you need to win at the casino or the lottery to afford a seat, but hey, we’ll always have a crumbling Rich Stadium as a fall back plan 😆

Where did you get the exotic notion that the Sabres want to build around a player such as Norris? The only player on the Sabres who is in the lofty category of worth building around is Dahlin. Norris certainly isn't in that category. Let's not forget that he was dealt in a one-on-one deal for Cozens. So his acquisition falls far short of an Eichel blockbuster type of deal. Hopefully, Norris becomes a first or more likely 2C player for us. If he becomes that caliber of player, then the trade works out well for the Sabres. If it doesn't, then so be it and move on.