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Really? Shame on me! Yes, I know how it's spelled. The older I get, the more careless my fingers get while typing.

Really?

https://buffalonews.com/news/local/business/health-care/article_fc290fce-0a18-4bf2-9091-dcbf84ba46a6.html In other news, Larry Quinn will be in charge of hiring surgeons and approving medical procedures.

Tuch on the national team's 4th (3rd?) line would make a ton of sense. Dude can PK as well, obviously.

Can confirm; sat next to PTR for part of the game. I think 4500 is generous, actually.

My take, unsupported by analytics: He's crashed out since he was asked/forced to do more than play fire wagon hockey for Good Vibes Only FHC DG.

A few of the young guys they sprinkled in are interesting choices.

I went to college in the Albany area. I think part of the problem is that the Capital District is kind of spread out in a tri-city area (Albany-Schenectady-Troy), and there is competition from Siena basketball and Union and RPI hockey, plus local fans are rooting for Boston and NYC NBA/NHL teams. I don't think the local population "needs" another sport to support. I get the sense that NLL exploded in popularity in Buffalo because the Bandits brought championships and the Sabres have sucked ass for so long.

Will be good for these guys to see what it feels like to be a winner.

Yep. The only set piece to the formula is you have to be getting at least above average goaltending when playing the top teams to be able to move on. Whether it's because you truly have a world class goalie (Bobrovsky, Vasilievsky (sp?)) or just a tandem that plays like them for 20 or so games (Ward & Gerber); you have to have very good goaltending to truly succeed.

Would've been shocked if either didn't get invited. And honestly expect both to make the team/play if they're healthy when the Olympic break hits.

There's competition and depth, provided everyone stays healthy. As soon as injuries start to hit, you are forcing youth back up into taking on too big a role at too high (minutes wise) a level against tougher competition. This team needs at least 1 more (and ideally 2, but no way we see that now IMHO) veteran that can legitimately play in the top 6 to make this work with even a bit of adversity thrown against them. In a vacuum, any of the players you mentioned could bump up into the top 6 without missing a beat. But there'll come stretches when 2 or all 3 of them need to bump up. And that puts a lot of extra pressure on them and the healthy vets that are still trying to do their jobs and be ready to cover for the youthful ooopses that necessarily happen. And, yes, realize you agree that the Sabres need another vet.

Not sure why Albany didn't draw better. Their college team, ever since the Thompsons played there, has been solid to great and it really seemed like the area was going to become a hotbed. The team has been entertaining too. Built a bit like the Sabres with a lot of offense and youth and not much idea of what to do on their own side of the restraining line. But unlike the Sabres, they had a nice playoff run 2 years ago. Too bad. Wonder if they'll get another crack at a franchise again. Could see it happening but wouldn't have money on it.

The bolded, counterintuitively, is one small reason to have hope that this season going kerplewy again (and as it stands, that's the most likely outcome with the current coaching and roster) it won't see Dahlin, Tuch, and Thompson all clamor to leave. Fixing the coaching, and had read here earlier that ALL of the coaches contracts are up after this season, while keeping this roster mostly intact with all having an additional 50-80 games under their belts could see this team have the necessary huge jump in the standings NEXT year especially if the goaltending finally gets solid (either via growth or additional move). With all the coaches getting changed out, it's POSSIBLE (not likely, but possible) that Adams might have a change in title as well and have a lesser role than the final decision maker on the 50 or so contracts. Not even remotely sold on Kekalainen (personally expect the majority of his success was due to having a true star directly under him in Zito), but trust him and Karmanos more than Adams. Bring in a couple of leadership vets who've been through long playoff runs consistently to go with the added experience and a coach that can actually get better play out of his players and that team could be poised to make the 20 point leap to 103 from 83. The canary in the coalmine for that is does Tuch sign an extension. If he does, though this season could be extremely frustrating, it won't necessarily lead to yet another rebuild. If he doesn't, expect all of the "big 3" to want out, and we get reduced to hoping that the supporting pieces have matured enough and whatever the Sabres get back for Dahlin and Thompson and Tuch's cap space round it out, and they pull a Columbus next year with an improved coaching staff. And, am still hoping for at least 1 more move at F, and ideally 2 but realistically that isn't realistic, to give a bit more depth and one of the 3 goalies (most likely UPL or Levi) finds a top 10 or so game, to make everything said above moot. This team COULD make the playoffs, if a whole lot of stuff breaks their way. But with this coaching staff wouldn't put any money at all on it happening. But what a truly frustrating off-season this has been that the expected improvement based on the moves made will result in 4-6 points better than last year; when they really needed to be trying for a 20 point improvement.

Wasn't it reported or at least rumored that Ruff had replacements under consideration for Wilford but the option/s declined?

The Buffalo Sabres have 5,996 games of NHL experience based on their current roster on EP. https://www.eliteprospects.com/team/53/buffalo-sabres/experience/2025-2026/all?league=nhl Montreal is next closest with 6,582 games and then Chicago at 6,945. Edmonton has 10,991 and Florida 12,384 for comparison. The Sabres are not only dead last but outside of Montreal, the next team is 1,000 more games of NHL experience. This team does not have enough experience and Adams has failed in almost every trade or signing where he has tried to add experience because he is a bad gm, with a bad sales pitch. The Sabres will only have 2 players with more than 500 games played, 5 players with more than 400 games played, 12 players with at least 200 games played when they start the next season. That means that almost half the roster will have played less than 3 full NHL seasons when we start the year but somehow we will magically make the playoffs with bad coaching and the what? Shonen Anime trope of willpower and friendship?

I’ve said it before that if the team was “finding ways for it work” in the way you consistently outline, not in similar fashion but literally just employing the mindset and tactics that would lead to the same conclusions your draw, it would necessarily be far more likely to yield a playoff team than whatever malarkey they’ve been engaging in

Plausible. I’ll accept it.

This is an interesting facet of this offseason's transactions: Out: 622 career GP JJP - 238 Clifton - 384 (career 6/7 D) In: 675 career GP Danforth - 183 Doan - 62 Jones - 115 Kesselring - 156 Timmins - 159 Did they get older and more experienced? Not really. Definitely not if Danforth is a scratch. They could be better, but it's another kick of the can into the future because you can't be certain what you're going to get.

With respect to counting on UPL, I agree with you that the GM is taking a big gamble. Not adequately addressing the most important position has put this team in a vulnerable position. To make things worse, he never has had an adequate backup plan if things didn’t work as he wanted to. I hope that UPL can re-establish his game. But I can’t say that I’m confident about him.

The Sabres are most likely missing the playoffs for a 15th straight year and we will see a gutting of coaches and front office personnel again. This is an 85pt with this coaching group, a group that has failed repeatedly. Lindy Ruff doesn't change anything and in fact his team was worse last year than Granato in part because Ruff spent 3 months dithering and being like "oh I thought these guys were different than what they are". Adams is incompetent by any measure and at this point who cares if they make the playoffs by some miracle? That doesn't change 5 years of abject failure by Kevyn. He is slow to adapt, gets hyper focused on 1 problem at a time, and cannot stand getting rid of ppl he likes on a personal level. In the end, it's nice they want to improve the defensive ability of the team but they didn't improve the coaching, they didn't improve the goaltending. We are going to win a few more games but the chance of the least experienced team in hockey putting it all together are slim to none and this team actually is less experienced than it was last year. Basically I guess we should just wait 3 years for them to mature because Pegula ain't going to change. He's convinced his farts smell like roses and champagne.

When you’ve failed as regularly and consistently as the Buffalo Sabres have you don’t get the benefit of the doubt. Especially when your signature off-season move is trading the remaining bright jewel in a fading collection of young forwards for a couple of unproven and unheralded young support pieces. There’s a general consensus among hockey-watchers that general manager Kevyn Adams is in over his head and a growing concern that the game has passed venerable coach Lindy Ruff by. This was the often disorganized team that allowed more goals than all but three NHL franchises last year and attacked that problem by bringing back a struggling starter who lost his net down the stretch, along with its entire failed coaching staff. This was the immature and fragile bunch who responded to a perceived lack of veteran savvy by adding 4 skaters who average 140 career NHL games among them. Last season crashed on the rocks of a 13-game December losing streak where Ruff openly acknowledged his players where not who he had thought they were, Adams failed to react with any significant action, and goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen broke under the strain. The rest of the year basically served as an audition where Ruff attempted to sort through what worked and what didn’t and Adams began the process of re-setting, specifically jettisoning perceived building block forwards Dylan Cozens and JJ Peterka from a group that had shown so much promise just two years before. The Sabres aren’t without talent, and that starts on the blue line, where Rasmus Dahlin, Owen Power, Bowen Byram, Michael Kesselring, Mattias Samuelsson and Conor Timmins are as toolsy as any NHL starting six in terms of size, skill and skating ability. But other than Dahlin — who has truly become a world-class blue liner — it’s an unproven collection of talent that has largely failed to realize its potential on an individual level. Perhaps Kesselring, the key piece in the Peterka return, can be the missing piece to unlock the group’s potential? Scoring goals hasn’t been a problem for this iteration of the team, but there is the question of whether that will remain true with the departure of Peterka, an offensive finisher and driver who was not replaced. With Thompson’s move to wing likely permanent, how will they fill the hole at centre? Certainly Thompson is an elite goal scorer and Alex Tuch a legit all-round power forward, but will Ryan McLeod and Jason Zucker repeat their excellent seasons? Can the talented Josh Norris stay healthy enough to be an upgrade over Cozens? Will any of the gifted but callow group of Zach Benson, Jiri Kulich, Jack Quinn and newcomer Josh Doan take a step? Is there enough ‘hard-to-play-against’ in the depth collection of Beck Malenstyn, Peyton Krebs, Jordan Greenway, Tyson Kozak and 30-something addition Justin Danforth? Luukkonen was excellent in the back half of 2023/24 to earn the starter’s net and the contract to go with it, but faltered badly down the stretch this season after being unable to stop the bleeding in December. Newcomer Alex Lyon is a battler and a viable stopgap, but he’s not the answer. Devon Levi might be eventually, but he wasn’t last year and seems almost certain to start the season in Rochester. Uncertainty in net has been an Adams trademark since he let Linus Ullmark walk in his rookie season. Statistically the Sabres got some of the league’s worst goaltending last year, but it’s hard to fully blame the goalies when their environment was so awful most of the time. So much of goaltending depends on the skaters – forwards and defensemen — making good decisions with the puck and adhering to the structure of the system and the Sabres were among the league’s worst last year in terms of allowing high-danger chances. Can the roster tweaks combine with a year of coaches and players adjusting to each other yield significant defensive improvement? Is the collection of talent in the crease enough to take advantage if they do? The Sabres are apparently counting on it. Sure, it does seem like the Sabres have made some incremental improvements in areas where they needed it: roster construction, grit, defence. But incremental is incremental, and incremental is not what is called for when you need to make up a 12-point playoff gap, especially in the wake of two years of decline on top of 12 years of relentless, pulverizing losing. What it all adds up to is that — in a market bereft of it — the Sabres seem to once again be pinning their improvement largely on hope. And in the words of their most veteran skater, Zucker, hope is a ***** strategy.

After the exhaustive coaching search (or just promotion from interim label if Ruff is fired mid-season), will Appert be able to make them look like a properly coached team? Will Appert keep Wilford on his staff for "continuity" and because they're already familiar with each other? Would Appert be able to, and permitted to, get a more expensive and more playoff-experienced defensive coach?