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10 reasons they could continue to regress 1. The Atlantic division is deeper than ever. Det, Mon, and Ott are actually improving while the Sabres have regressed The Sabres have regressed? I personally don't think the on ice talent/mix has shown a lot of regression in the offseason. And detroit is kind spinning their wheels, maybe not bad but I don't see a jump out of them. 2. Adams traded away another young developing scorer, who has improved each of his 3 NHL season, for two depth players who may or may not have upside. I'd also say Kesserling is more than Depth. 3. McLeod is almost certain to regress. He is a career 11.9% shooter who had a career year last year when shooting 20.9%. I'm guessing his shooting percentage may be a bit lower, but I think he could also have more ice time and shots to balance that out. 4. The goaltending is woefully inadequate. The save % of our 4 goalies last season were as follows - UPL .887, Levi .872, Georgiev .875, and Lyon.896. League average last season was .893 in all situations. If it doesn't get better, yes, this is a reason they will be bad. 5. Norris unlikely to play enough games to adequately replace Cozens. Norris has never played more than 66 games in a season and has averaged only 47 games a season during his time in the NHL. Remember he was shutdown after only 3 games last season following the trade from Ottawa. Cozens was a net negative. He HURT the team when he was on the ice. The team is better having any guy replace him who doesn't make the same mistakes. 6. The entire failed coaching staff returns including special teams failure Appert and defensive failure Wilford. I'll say this might be an issue. I don't know much about the ins-and-outs of NHL coaches, but I would have liked to see some changes. 7. The team again refuses to spend to the cap and with the cap rising quickly, the Sabres are likely to fall further behind. Remember that teams that don’t spend to the cap rarely make the playoffs. I think they are pretty close to the cap. 8. The defense remains defensively suspect. Byram, Power, Samuelsson and Bryson are still inept defensively. Kesselring and Timmins maybe upgrades defensively over Joki or Clifton, but neither has ever been a full time top 4 defenseman. Timmins has averaged less than 16 minutes a night for his career and last season was his first in 6 years as a full time NHLer. Kesselring played under 18 a night last season and while he did fill in the top 4, as soon as Utah got healthy he was relegated to the 3rd pair. He did have a solid all around season, but it’s fair to wonder if he is ready to pair with a player as defensively inept as Power for 22 minutes a night. It’s also fair to question whether the addition of two 3rd pairing D is enough to elevate a group as terrible as the Sabres have been defensively for years. Yes and no. They need to be better, but this D-group takes a lot of s**t when the failing should be put more on lack of support from the forwards. I personally need to "see" Kesserling play well on this team though, I do agree he was really only a fill-in on the top 4 last year. 9. I am a big fan of both Benson and Kulich, but Sabres are betting on their continued improvement, plus rebounds from injury prone guys like Quinn and Norris, plus continued success from Zucker and McLeod, to keep the offense working. Also don’t forget we don’t even know who the 9th top 9 forward will be; will it be the injury prone and scoring challenged Greenway or a bet on another young player with 62 games of NHL experience in Josh Doan. That’s a great deal to ask and comes with a high risk of failure. If the offense regresses, it raises the odds of another regression by the team significantly. Agree on a lot of this. You want Kulich and Benson to get better, but they won't be better until they actually do it. Norris has to play a full season. Quinn I don't have much confidence in. Greenway I don't think should have been re-signed. This can be an issue. 10. Kevyn Adams is still the GM. Doesn't matter that much if the moves he made improve the on-ice product.

We now have 3 - paid 3 - pending 1 - myself 1 - available

On the flip side (apologies if these are supposed to be 2 polar opposite, extremist threads) the biggest reason for hope is that making the playoffs is something that should just happen, eventually, because it’s literally not a significant accomplishment (as much as it will be and feel that way, for us). It’s not hard to do. The Sabres a mathematical outlier isn’t just something we say: frustration stems from flipping a coin heads 14 times in a row presumably by doing nothing we’d make it in reasonably short order - we have to be actively be handcuffing the proceedings to fail this much no, Adams surely didn’t “do enough” by the prism of a team that’s missed 14 straight and should be treating the season like a can’t miss rather than a “maybe make”, but frankly we could easily make the playoffs standing pat just because, again, it’s not difficult Does it prove Adams’ plan correct if he scratches a playoff berth for the first time in 6 seasons? Of course not - we know he’s a poor GM and his plan was bad. There’s nothing that can be proven and luckily for us it doesn’t need to be: we can simply get in because mediocre teams get in all the time

The only "La La" beside "Deck the Halls".

Our D we’ll improve when all the forwards are responsible in our own end. Too many people exiting before we have clean possession and leaving us 5 on 4.

I like Chris Brown's call.

When the Minnesota lawmakers died, Trump refused to say their names, Trump said he wouldn't call Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, suggesting it would "waste time." So as far as killing someone else over politics that should never happen. You should use your power of voting. Trump organization brings this on themselves by using violence against others and spreading false information to incite more violence. The problem is the Trump administration is trying to take away the power of voting so in the end some will resort to violence.

IMHO the biggest opportunity for improvement given the modest changes and current lineup was hoping for the coaching area changes we have all witnessed that they regularly play poorly and struggle with. I have no confidence they will even match last years point total. Thanks for nothing GMKA, because that's all on a loser like you.

Those little blue pills are amazing.

It's a LONG video (over 23 minutes) and have no idea who this is that's saying it. But he has a very important message. Hope people watch; if not, whatevs. Love ya all.

I LaLa-ed last night and again this morning. I thought those days were done.

I don't hate him. He's just dumb. So was our black lab when I was growing up and so are most posters on this board. Forrest Gump as well. All beloved.

Chance of happening, Likelihood it makes up ground vs other teams 1) 8/10, 4/10 2) 9/10, 2/10 3) 3/10, 7/10 4) 2/10, 8/10 5) 8/10, 9/10 6) 2/10, 2/10 7) 10/10, 1/10 8 ) 10/10, 9/10 9) 7/10, 3/10 10) 9/10, 2/10

Well I largely agree, however all soup bases shouldn't be blamed.

I don’t know that the trade makes the team better but it definitely will make the D unit better unless he’s some sort of outright net negative like Cozens, or Hellebuyck - who was “bad on breakaways, which we give up a lot of” and who wouldn’t have helped this team at all

In which To this day I’ve managed to avoid ever watching this clip TO THIS DAY

This post confuses me. We already know that A. Dahlin will start on the right side of the top pairing and B. That Byram will be his linemate. They literally don't need a new rhd on every line or I guess you dislike Kesselring and Timmins. They are new and better defensively than the players they replaced. The D lacks experience, I'll agree there.

Does Kesselring alone make this a better overall D? I find it hard to believe. So Who is playing with Dahlin? Samuelsson? The d is still complete lacking. They needed a new RHD who has a strong defensive game on every line. Now we’ll almost be banking on Levi to be the savior in goal once again.

Novikov looked solid, Komarov was very much in command, although he was the weak link on the PP. Very impressed with Mrtka: assertive at both ends.

Wasn't paying close attention but Östlund had a couple of great scoring chances that he was unable to bury.

Östlund frequently has the puck, or is always around it. He was the team’s best two-way forward. Wahlberg was a bit in and out, but there were some puck protections, takeaways and board work that looked very good.

The Sabres may have no reason for hope, but Soup is above reproach.

Yes, you said fans want to hope after providing 10 reasons they shouldn't have any. Clearly you were taking the tenor of @dudacek's original post to heart.