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I respectfully but strenuously disagree with you. The Sabres have become a ghetto franchise scorned by many players because of its own systematic malfeasance in operating a franchise. Players are competitive and want to win. It's not the total reason why they want to go to a particular franchise but it is a factor. I would also say that the majority of players in all sports have homes that are not in the city that they play in. You can't hide this franchise's record. It's known to all.

That's a good plan in case you want to upgrade for a playoff push. Peterka's O will be missed but Kesselring will really help on the back end.

Probably too many high priority names on the list. On all sides...

I wish it were mine. It is the little guy's dad's boat. My niece's husband. When we go for smallies, we can both stand on the deck and cast with no problems. He has the IPilot with spotloc as well. I have been looking for a reasonably priced second hand one now for 3 or so weeks. My son-in-law is holding the master and they are coming down this weekend and I wanted to get him out for cats again but they are forecasting rain ALL Saturday. Me, him and Stella in the garage instead I guess...

I just don’t think it’s Terry’s unwillingness to spend. I continue to believe the hatred these guys have of taxes across all 4 major sports is grossly underestimated. KA wasn’t wrong. You just can’t say it out loud. You need to prop up why you want to spend the next 7-8 years of your life in Buffalo. Starting with the fans. There will be no better city in America to win a major championship right now than Buffalo. Not one.

I think we're simpatico in that they've handled nearly every - I'll call them attempts, so poorly. I really think the theory behind most of the attempts, I agreed with. The execution, no no no. We're in a bind and IMO, spending has to become the first step towards turning this around. There's no chance, IMO, if that doesn't happen. Then huge amounts of luck are needed, IMO. We're not that bad of a team, again IMO. However this being easy breezy, build it and they will come, is not reality.

From Bleacher Report (I gotta learn how to do this properly) “8 NHL Teams Already Looking Toward Gavin McKenna When you look at how much high-end talent the Sabres have, the first reaction you should have is that it’s insane we’re throwing them into the race for Gavin McKenna. And you’d be right, too! However, if you look at how the Sabres did things this offseason and wanted to take the pessimistic viewpoint of it, you'd feel pretty convinced that another long season is in store for Buffalo and the thought of restarting another rebuild with McKenna wouldn't be so bad. The Sabres dealt JJ Peterka to Utah for Michael Kesselring and Josh Doan, traded Connor Clifton and a second-round pick to Pittsburgh for Conor Timmins and a prospect and added depth players in free agency like Justin Danforth and Alex Lyon. They're in limbo (for now) with RFA defenseman Bo Byram who may or may not be traded. GM Kevyn Adams set out to make the team tougher defensively and harder to play against and they'll most likely be just that, but if the offense stalls out, none of that might matter because then they'll need goaltending to bail them out more often than not. Hoping that Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen rebounds/Alex Lyon steadies them/Devon Levi takes over the net only adds more questions to be answered. If Buffalo is in the hunt for McKenna by the end of the season, keep Sabres fans in your thoughts because next offseason would be immensely difficult. There's no reason for a team with Rasmus Dahlin, Tage Thompson, Alex Tuch and Owen Power to be in this discussion, and yet...”

I hope that is the case. Very often the issue isn't necessarily how much you spend as it is how you spend it.

In fairness, you don't often hear Adams described that way. (Usually) context helps tremendously. In this instance, not so much.

I have never been told that I acted adroitly. However, I have been told many times that I acted impetuously. Too much Italian in me. 😁

Sometimes as a Sabre fan you feel boxed in. You go with what you got. No other choice. In a way, I don't want KA to get too exotic when making moves because he would be acting beyond his capacity. Sticking with the basics is the right course of action for him. No fancy French or Italian food on his plate. Simple meat and potatoes with a domestic beer.

Making me feel dumb having to look that word up

I have said this in a numerous postings that I feel KA is playing this Byram situation adroitly.

Exactly, and that's the problem. KA is just a s**t GM. Simple as that. I'm a chess player .

Exactly. Which tells you that Byram could have fetched a decent haul if they'd gone that same route. I mean consider it. Even if Byram is less and you only get the 2 firsts, you sign Orlov in free agency and then use those picks for Rust or maybe even Robertson. Face it, Adams is a lousy GM and he is killing this team because Dahlin will ask out after this year. I am almost certain of it.

Not entirely true. Yes, even if they are perennial champions, they aren't going to be worth more than the Broadway Blue Shirts. But their value would go up significantly if they were successful on the ice. They'd have perennial sellouts and the broadcast rights would go up in value as more people in the area would be watching on TV so the ad rates would rise. Throw in merchandise sales and the like, and winning would likely increase the team's value quite a bit. Especially if Pegula or the guy he hired to run his teams could figure out how to get Sabres games broadcast on the NP, the value of the team could go up a lot by putting a winning roster on the ice.

If no top 6 forwards are signing here, I don't care if Byram gets paid for a year or two. They have the cap. Spend it

Sure. Play great, get traded for value. Win win.

The Sabres could win 5 Stanley Cups in a row and their value wouldn't be affected by that. The Sabres are worth what they are worth because of market size. They will always be the #29-31 team in the NHL. But NHL franchise values keep rising. So win or lose, the Sabres are worth $1.15B according to Forbes. Probably more next year. But that's kind of bad news because the value of the franchise is beyond what anyone else would pay to keep the team here. You have groups that wouldn't think twice of paying a billion plus for the Sabres and another billion to the league to relocate them.

The bolded is accurate. IMHO. And if the Sabres had an actual NHL caliber coach running the D door, expect that he'd be able to answer that because that guy would know what he is working with every day and would let the HC and the GM know his thoughts about it. As for would there have been a caveat or conditions in Adams statement that they planned to match any offer? We'll never know. He didn't make the statement in the way Quinn did nearly 20 years ago which Lowe felt he could put in a crazy offer (at the time, nowadays it'd almost be pedestrian) that politician Larry let himself get backed into matching. Expect (hope?) that Adams claim that he'd match any offer included either the adjective reasonable or realistic in that statement. And if he did or didn't, again, we won't know because Byram didn't sign an offer sheet. But, do expect that had Byram gotten an offer sheet it would've been for less than $9MM and Adams would've matched the offer. But that is as much speculation as you or others believing otherwise.

Well, yes. And that's why if Quinn is on either PP unit, he is on the one w/ 2 D rather than the one with only 1. 😉

So when Adams said that they would match ANY offer, that really meant any number less than 6 or 7 or 8M? The unconditional statement has conditions? The problem is that Adams doesn't know what Byram is. He wants to play Bryam as a top pair D, or he wants him valued as a top pair D in a trade. But he doesn't want to pay him as one. He wants to pay him like a 4 D, less than 7M, but the trade value for a 7M player is what Adams got back for Peterka. A 5/4 defenseman and a 4/3 forward. And he wants more. Dahlin is the 1D. He makes 11M. Power is the 3D. He makes 8M. If Byram is the 2D, he should slot between those guys. So the question to Adams is, is Bryam a 2D? I don't think he can answer that.

I don't know if Trump is on the list or not, I haven't seen it. I think it's logical that if he was on it it would have come out during the Biden/Harris administration and would have been added to the many charges he was convicted of. At a bare minimum it would have been leaked prior to the election.

And a minor thing that doesn't happen often but does happen... When the team has a bad giveaway on the PP, it might help them defend the opposing team's SH break having an actual D-man back there than a forward who has little clue to to play a 2-on-1. The Sabres did allow 8 or 9 shorthanded goals, and 50 shots against / 20 high danger shots against when the were on the PP last year.

It was a good call. Didn't agree with it at the time, but back then wanted Thompson, Tuch, Peterka, and Quinn (yikes, horrible friggin' call) out there with Dahlin. Expecting if they run it, they'll run it with Byram taking the role of being the player opposite Thompson on the right half wall. But wonder what would happen if they ran it more like a traditional old-school 3-2 PP with 1 major wrinkle. Have BOTH the D, who are very good puck movers cheating in lower into the zone and effectively then having the bumper pushing down lower to the net as well. It necessarily puts them tighter to the defenders working against them, but am fine with both Dahlin and Byram being able to keep the puck and pass it cleanly under pressure. As everything is more compact; you are necessarily geting more traffic in front of the goalie and also reducing how long he has to react to the pass/shot combo. It couldn't POSSIBLY be any worse relatively speaking than their drop pass through 2 zones as an entry. AND it would have the advantage of being something other teams don't often see so they won't be as skilled at defending it. If it turns out that they do lose the puck too often, they could always adjust it to the more in vogue diamond with a bumper.