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super helpful - thanks, @DarthEbriate. kempe appears to be a tick better? tuch's gotta be sitting on 8x$10M. and maybe he'd give the team a bit of relief with something like 8 x $9.875 with a side deal for tuch to be a no-show foreman at some fracking wells. (hey, why should the NBA have all the fun with cap-circumventing side deals?)

The market is set. Tuch is half a year older, but both are 29. Top-line wingers on their team for 5 years running (except at times when TNT isn't at center). Kempe is the slightly better scorer. Since Tuch joined the Sabres, Kempe has played in 38 more games, but otherwise they are close. Kempe has a much higher shot volume (he gets the shots on net, and not rimming around the boards and out of the zone, hey-oh!) https://www.sports-reference.com/stathead/hockey/versus-finder.cgi?request=1&seasons_type=forall&year_min=2022&year_max=2026&player_id1=tuchal01&player_id2=kempead01 Kempe GP 338 145-143-288 +58 PIM 223 PPG 30 SHG 10 GWG 25 1046 SOG point share 34.3 Tuch GP 300 113-146-259 +38 PIM 166 PPG 15 SHG 10 GWG 20 790 SOG ps 28.4

The level that the point is being intentionally misconstrued to solely because of a mention of playoff standings is comically impressive. Take out the mention of where they are in the standings and the point stays the same — they weathered the rash of injuries to the point that they’re still within an arms reach of being in the middle of it. Survive tonight and don’t have a typical Sabres setback, then see what can happen once they have a semblance of a healthy roster coming back in the next few games.

The issue with the standings isn't that they're only 4 points back, it's that every single team in the East currently has a better points percentage than the Sabres. Any team could get hot at any point in time and the Sabres need to be one of the teams to do it soon so they aren't looking up at 7 teams still between them and the final wild card berth with so many head-to-head matchups going to OT. Tampa and Boston are already starting to stack wins where they could get clear of the .500ish mass.

does a rising cap essentially take care of that on the back end? i'm late to this party. kempe's 29 as well? is he way better than tuch? i have no idea. if they're arguably comparable, then the sabres have no leverage. where's darcy and the proverbial wait for the market to set itself?

This is a difficult situation for the franchise. Yes, the playoff drought, fan disaffection, and Tuch being a heart and soul top-6 guy with hometown cred. But also, they're dealing with a 29 year-old player who's going to ask for an 8-year term. I just have no faith in Adams to navigate this properly.

People saying "we're right there" are of course presuming the team's need to stack several 3 and 4 game win streaks and otherwise tread water. Also, the NHL standings around American Thanksgiving are highly predictive of how those standings will look in early April. lol - man this is true too

But, except for 1 year, in the post tank era if we don't talk about them in November we don't get to talk about them at all, at least in terms of making them THIS season. 😉

Why? I thought this was a given since he took practice off yesterday

Yep. There is no playoff spot in November. This happens every year about this time. But it probably makes sense. Two to four points out after 20 games extrapolates to 8 to 16 out at season's end. This is not "we're right there."

Getting league-worst grades in travel accommodations and training staff means that Terry's some combination of cheap and incompetent.

Personally expected Lyon tonight with Ellis Friday and Lyon on Saturday unless he'd screwed the pooch tonight. BUT by going with Ellis tonight, he can come back with Lyon on Friday for the out of conference game and then back to Ellis on Saturday for the in-conference game. They also have 2 days off before the next set of 3 games, so they can run Ellis-Lyon-Ellis once again. So, there is a logic to it, especially if they believe Ellis is playing the best of the 3 right now.

Just win. I don't want to hear about playoff standings in freakin' November .

the avv doesn't worry me as much as the length. If it is 10mil x8yrs... idk how I feel about that.

If you win tonight you’re sitting at 20 points while the 8th seed is at 22 points, that would be 2 points out. The only other team that plays tonight in the wild card race is Washington, with a win they would go to 22 points, so again with a win tonight you’d only be 2 points behind them. The only team within the wild card race that could get further than 4 points ahead of us via games in hand would be the Flyers, if they won both games in hand, they’d be sitting at 25 points. In that scenario, NYI (with no games in hand) drops from WC1 to WC2 with 24 points, again leaving you 4 points out. So, yes. A win tonight leaves you 2-4 points out. I understand the pessimism on the board around the team with a massive playoff drought, but the mental gymnastics between DeLuca .500, point%, ‘point paces’ and etc just to make it seem further away and less possible than it actually is, it gets tiring and redundant. No matter what way you paint it, with a win tonight, you will wake up tomorrow between 2-4 points out, and with no one with enough games in hand to push you any further back than that.

From Pierre LeBrun Tuch, Sabres face sizeable gap in talks Adrian Kempe’s extension this week further clarified the evolving forward market for UFAs. The next man up on that dwindling pending UFA list is Alex Tuch. My understanding is that there remains a sizeable gap in positions in those talks. Which is to say I don’t think Buffalo has gone to double digits on the AAV yet. And I mean, who’s to say if the Sabres ultimately will? Neither side has shut down talks, though, and both are willing to pick up the conversation at any time. For now, those talks are status quo.

We can look back too:

He certainly does doesn't he? I don't really like it. I think it risks an injury or burn out on any goalie. Very few teams nowadays run one goalie multiple games in a row like that. I also think it doesn't do right by the goalies in question. There's too many goalies. Time to s@@t or get off the pot. Stop procrastinating cause you don't know what to do Kevyn. They don't fix this Levi will want out for sure. UPL obviously will be unhappy and Lyon might start to get unhappy too. Yes, that tracks. UPL also has a habit of letting in soft ones at inopportune times. game killers. He's unreliable. It should be Ellis-Lyon 60-40 split in games with Levi pushing for a real shot next year and then Georgiev as an injury insurance policy for the season at best. That's it. It's not that complicated. Adams is the only GM in the league that can turn a waiver gift like Ellis into a complicated mess and controversy where nobody will be happy. I would have started Lyon tonight and then back to Ellis on Friday. Calgary is a dumpster fire but watch out for the Johnny Beecher hat trick 🙂

https://moneypuck.com/goalies.htm

where do you get these #'s?

Not bad. But you forgot to toss in Daylight Savings Time.

Lindy gonna Lindy. Created by Bettman, but yeah - same difference.

No. Don't assign motives to me that are false. What I want is to not lose the season. Somehow they aren't out of it yet despite the lost and blown games. Make the team better to compete and don't worry so much about trades and who gets whatever. get some D help. I also want to stabilize the goaltending and do right by the guys we go with. As such I'm not even complaining if he traded UPL for "future considerations". I think he can make a better trade but I really don't care. Ellis is better.

Ellis is at 0.452gsax/60 Lyon is at 0.217gsax/60 UPL is at -0.503gsax/60

https://nflpa.com/report-cards/2025/buffalo-bills Team Travel- F- (worst in the league), Team Training Staff- C, those were the worst grades.