Taro T

Levi has ZERO leverage. How was he going to keep from re-signing? Is he going to get a career in whatever his major was his 2 years at Northeastern?

Equipment sale and open house.

On paper, the D IS better. Had they replaced Wilford, would even expect it to be better, perhaps significantly. But will only say it is better when it actually performs better.

He's not wrong. Superstar Car Wash is a fantastic album.

Hoping you are, as usual, right. The scary thing in all of this is 2 fold: 1. afraid the next shoe to drop will come AFTER Dahlin has decided there's no point to staying here. (Really don't want to be back to square 1.) 2. have serious concerns that Kekalainen's successes were built off the genius that Bill Zito is. In which case, yes, Jarmo will be an improvement, but he very well might just be marginally better than either of Adams 2 predecessors. Which SHOULD be good enough to get the Sabres back into the league, but likely as the Aisles or Nucks of the past 10 years. AKA able to threaten to get into the playoffs and maybe even win a round, but no real threat to truly succeed.

Well, yes, he can. Why should we have ANY expectation that he might do so? So far, he treats Adams the way Granato treated Henri, and we all know Granato LOVES HIM some Jokiharju.

Hiring Ruff was the canary in the coal mine. Him retaining the entire staff (even Ellis came back, just in a lesser role, and to be replaced by a guy who might actually have the distinction of being both paid to coach and being worse than Ellis) for the 2nd time in a row was the canary dying.

Any thoughts on whether the other owners can actually get Pegula to punt Adams? Can see them being torn on the issue. Yes, Buffalo could bring in quite a bit more money into the system if they'd rejoin the league. BUT if they do rejoin the league, then the other owners are competing against 31 other franchises rather than just 30. They already took Arizona back into the league (though they relocated the club, it is quite likley now an actual rival rather than a joke / afterthought), do they really want NO byes on their schedules?

No data. Personally, expect he'll start being what he actually is going to be the season after this. But, also, starting this season, there's a very good chance this team isn't an "internal cap" team any longer. Unless they punt Byram and bring back less salary than he ends up making, they'll at most have $5MM in cap left and if they make a move for Rust or something else to help the top 6 they'll have less than $2MM in cap (again, presuming Byram doesn't go out the door for less salary than he'll be getting).

In fairness to Peters, even if he was an individual of average intelligence in his youth, in his late adolescence / early adulthood he became a hard core user of andro (since banned for NHLers) and his job description included taking haymakers to the melon on a fairly regular basis. Of course he isn't even remotely the smartest guy in whatever room he's in presuming he isn't the only guy in the room (and even then it's debatable).

But it does make the addled decision making this team has been notorious for the past 3 or so years seem understandable. It WAS a joke. But, though that may be, considering the results, in a vacuum the theory is plausible.

Agree that Power MAY never become what the Sabres hoped/expected when he was drafted, but personally can't look past his only being 22. To the bolded, pretty sure that Adams convinced his boss (or maybe it was the other way around) to run the experiment to see if the threshold players need to pass is that 200 game or so threshold to become what they're going to be or if they needed to be mature enough to actually be MEN when they start getting into the meat of those 200 games and that they won't reach their prime at any sooner by facing stiffer competition at the earliest they can without getting blown up. It WAS an interesting experiment. And perhaps some other owner/GM at some future point will try to replicate the experiment by changing something that Adams or his coaches did that "corrupted" the experiment (in the eyes of those bold enough to repeat the experiment; and most likely the variable that owner and GM will try to fix will be getting legitimate NHL coaches to implement the plan as choosing NTDP coaches to implement the plan MIGHT've doomed the experiment but it probably was doomed anyhow) and we'll see THAT attempt to prove that it's games played and not maturity PLUS games played that dictates when pleyers become what they're going to be. But right now, the one time the experiment has been run on a non-expansion team and arguably the one time it's EVER been run has shown us that it ISN'T just players reaching the games played threshold to reach their primes. They also need the maturity for the players to be effectively (for lack of a better word) growing with those games played. Yes, Power has played 242 NHL games. And he's been the better player on his primary pairing for probably 200+ of those games. At this point in his career, that 200/40 ratio should almost be the exact opposite of what it actually is &/or he should've been 3rd pairing, not 2nd pairing for ~160 of those games at least. He still has runway to try to take flight. EDIT: And hopefully it is never a Buffalo based team that tries to run that experiment again. Let some other fanbase be the guinea pigs stuck having to hope the hypothesis being tested is correct.

Jokiharju WAS better than we gave him credit for being. It's not HIS fault that his coaches kept insisting on pairing him up with Dahlin for large stretches of every season after Dahlin's rookie or sophomore season. But they REALLY needed to move on from him, because as long as he was here on the roster, they were going to find excuses to play the very good 3rd pairing and adequate 2nd pairing D-man on the TOP pairing. Adams literally saved Wilford from himself obtaining that draft pick.

REALLY hoping this season is kind of the inverse of when they originally hired Ruff. They made MAJOR changes in the FO and coaching ranks and it looked like the team would be a tire fire coming off an unexpectedly good season in Nolan's 2nd year. But, rather than be a tire fire all year, they figured it out in the 2nd 1/2 of that season and went 1 round further than Nolan's squad had a year earlier. Not expecting it. But hoping for it. And for anybody that cares, there were NOT a lot of seats with placards on them today. Though the HARD CORE Sabres fans that come here are for the most part despondent, it doesn't seem to be a universal sentiment.

Actually, post-heart attack / stroke, maybe it's Kim. Would explain a LOT.

Efficient economic excrement. They should have hats made.

The reason to trade him was in line with their other moves last off-season. They somehow came to the conclusion that their issue against FLA 2 seasons ago was that they didn't have enough offense to beat them. They cut loose guys that were responsible 2 way players and brought in guys like Skinner that, um, aren't. Swamp Cats had to be loving the roster moves the Eulers made last year.

Guess Jeff decided the playoffs are much ado about nothing. They might be right for some hockey players, but not for him.

Except that new huge scoreboard DOES show shot on goal totals. And they can go up or down at ANY time apparently for ANY reason. There were times this past season that watching them was more entertaining than what was on the ice. One more reason to buy a ticket to the game. This is some of the in rink entertainment that doesn't get broadcast to those sitting at home watching. 😉

THAT is a truly depressing thought. But even if in taking the job he'd've been expected to make the same hockey department moves that Adams was brought in for there is NO reason to expect he'd've made the same personnel moves that Adams made. Don't forget, Adams didn't sell off all the talent until setting up for his SECOND season as GM. Adams was the one that brought in Staal and Hall and Irwin Oh, my! Any reason to believe/expect that Zito wouldn't have made better moves? And if they don't do as poorly that year as they actually did, well, they most likely don't get Power but they also don't necessarily lose Reinhart, Ullmark, Eichel and the rest. How does Zito go about in that 2nd season with the guys in house knowing that they AREN'T doing another rebuild; they're just continuing the BUILD?

Well, that's kind of the scary thing. Was Dahlin's back injury just a fluke "muscle spasm" or the like? Or is it something structural and are the days of him playing 80 games in the past? When he tried to play through the 1st injury from the absolute beginning of TC he was at best 80% of his usual self. But when he came back after the 9+ games he missed, he was looking like his normal self almost from the 1st shift back on the ice. So, will hesitantly expect that the injury is more of a muscle spasm type thing that through proper stretching, exercise, prep, nutrition, and maintenance can not only be overcome but can leave him in even better shape than we've become accustomed to. (To not expect it, as a fan, is just too depressing a path to go down.) As long as the Sabres don't lose Dahlin for any extended period and they don't lose whichever goalie ends up the #1, they'll be able to ride out injuries like any other team will. But, with as little margin as they have, THOSE would be catastrophic injuries. And will necessarily presume that they won't suffer those particular injuries because if they do, they're in the McKenna derby. If they avoid those, then yes, 85 should be the floor. (And hopefully, Adams WE finally gets the luck he's Adams planned for 4 years in a row to date and they actually end up as good as he expects them to be.) IF Dahlin is healthy and they get legit GTing that stays healthy, they can overcome the 5 games that both Thompson and Tuch are out together and the other 10 that one of them is out. Same goes with the rest of the crew.

Even on last year's team, at absolute minimum they have 2 more wins should Dahlin not go out for nearly 10 games. Would say with no other moves, this is looking like 85 points.

Provided the Amerks that year didn't have any other 19 year olds who'd been eligible to be in the CHL, yes, apparently.

Any word if this is also going to apply to trade deadline day transactions? Would expect they'd make an exception to that so the players that get moved down on paper will be able to play in the AHL playoffs when the parent team's season is done. But, without seeing the actual paragraph from the CBA, don't know for certain.

Absolutely. But Zito was still in C-Bus as the AGM the day Botterill got canned and would stay in that role for about 4 more months. Follow the plan they used for the Bills and go back to the 2nd choice. Can follow the "underpants gnomes" plan and even have an answer for step 2 rather than ??? 1. Go with the guy the league recommends that YOUR advisors wants, find out he sucks, & can him. 2. Take the free do-over and hire Zito. 3. PROFIT!!!!