Taro T

They didn't lose to Filly on 3/4. They lost to them in January. They beat the Bolts on 3/4. It still was an ugly stretch, but no need to make it look uglier than it actually was.

And the Adelphia ones with "we need tuna" and "must see, must see." Labatt's bear ones were great too. "did not see that coming." "the worst part about living in Canada is sleeping on the cold rocks; I've got a waterbed; check please!" and his karioke stint. And finally, "but Steve, it's Saturday, we were biting this morning, we were biting this morning." Might try to find them this evening.

Liger's version is the one including the games as actually played, not originally scheduled. The Sabres were supposed to play Filly on March 4. They actually played TB that night. Actually, it was 4 in a row on 2 separate occasions. Not 5. Just sayin' ... 😉

To your top paragraph, don't believe we will see eye to eye on that because as @Marvin stated, giving the coaches the contract extensions is leaguewide SOP. But it's not a biggie that we don't agree. To your last paragraph, the Sabres after that horrid 2-8-2 stretch were still only 7 points behind the 8th place team with a game in hand (which they ended up winning so they were effectively 5 points out of the playoffs); hardly a team that had been eliminated with 11 or 12 games (depending upon whether you look at the record with 12 games left or 11 so they and Florida had the same # of games remaining) still remaining. And it wasn't a 9 or 10 game losing streak, it was a 2-8-2 stretch with 2 separate stretches where they only took 1 of 8 points. It's still bad, but don't really see a need to exaggerate how bad it was. And that streak very much coincided with Tuch missing time, Dahlin reaggravating the injury he was playing through, Thompson getting injured, and IIRC Samuelsson also was reinjured in that stretch. That's some serious quality hockey out of action and they still closed out the season almost well enough to get back into the playoffs. (They did get back into the picture. Being 1 point behind 8th is by definition in the picture; it's just outside where they needed to be.) The day before the rough stretch began, they were 1 point out of the playoffs behind the Aisles by 3 (with 5 games in hand) and the Pens by 1 (with 1 game in hand) and ahead of the rest of the middle 4 teams in their own division by 2-4 points and with 1-3 games in hand. But they were still technically out of the playoffs on that date. Lyon went crazy good for the Swamp Cats when Bobrovsky missed a couple games due to illness and they made up 4 points while having played 3 more games. They also caught the Aisles who were even 3 points further ahead of them than the Sabres were. Stinks, but it was Lyon coming out of nowhere to send Florida on a tear that killed the Sabres down the stretch more so than the injury riddled Sabres faltering again to a degree. (Both hurt, but the Cats went on a crazy good run to go from nearly out of the picture into grabbing the last spot.)

To the bolded, to an extent that's correct, but you can play big (Nolan's '95-'96 team played very big, not too much of a stretch to say that was the toughest Sabres team ever assembled) and still not play well (3rd worst in their conference; 7th worst overall). That '96-'97 was smaller but still played hard and was more skilled than the previous year's version and actually won its division. IMHO it doesn't matter how big you play if you have no skill. The trick is to find guys that can do both - play big and skilled and fill in the pieces around them with primarily skilled guys that don't play with fear. You can be small and tenatious and as long as you don't play with fear you can be part of the answer for putting teams like the Bruins back on their heels.

Can't say the kid didn't learn ANYTHING from Rasmus the Elder. 😉

Expecting he's a 3rd pairing guy based on talent alone. But if this LHD can find some chemistry with either LHD Dahlin or LHD Power; well that's what pairing he'll be for the Sabres. Kind of like how Warrener and Lydman successfully got pulled up a level because of chemistry with their partners or how ClearsItNotOut got pulled up 2 levels because he could speak his partner's native tongue and his goalie got bored if he didn't get to see enough action. (Pretty sure he washed the goalie's car after practice and ran other errands too, but either way the greatest goalie of all time liked having him on the ice for reasons only beknownst to him so ClearsItNotOut got to play quite a bit.)

They might, but do you honestly see Crosby retiring in any sweater other than the one he wears today? The Pens are not trading him away. MAYBE for MacKinnon and probably for McDavid. But they aren't looking to dis a legend. IMHO, the Bruins would see Bergeron the same way should he be willing to come back on another incentive laden deal. It's not the same as Chara FINALLY walking in his 40's after having been on other teams early in his career.

Well, and this is obviously just posturing and setting expectations, but Yzerman himself is on record as saying the Sabres are further ahead in their rebuild than his Wings are.

Do they have a youth team associated with the Marlies themselves? The Amerks lend their name to a local youth hockey organization here in Ra-cha-cha. If they do, could be as simple as letting that team use it to go to a summer tournament seeing as how the Marlies aren't using the bus. Saves them the cost of renting a bus and is likely a tax writeoff.

Because they (for whatever reason) like these coaches enough to have them in those roles this year. If they have contracts that expire on June 30, then ANY other team can put them into the exact same role as they filled as employees of the Sabres organization whether the Sabres organization would like to keep them or not. If they have contracts that expire on June 30, 2025 or later THEN in order for another team to poach them, they have to give them what would be a promotion above their current position. The Sabres would also have the option of bumping the guy up themselves rather than letting him interview for that higher position in another organization. Though it looks like it ISN'T putting a priority on winning (gee, they give rewards to guys that aren't getting the job done) it's actually putting a priority on winning. They expect these teams to be winning this coming season and expect the people they have in house to contribute to that. Are they correct in their assessments? Don't know. (And personally wanted the Sabres PP coach to get punted into the sun.) If they're wrong, then all that is lost at the end of the season is several $k of Pegula bucks. If they're right, nothing is lost and they can keep the same staffs in place provided nobody wants to give any of them promotions. (Like Peca and Weber received.) It really is that simple.

See them more in the Buster role. 😉

But if you flip that question, would you trade THEM straight up for Tage, you'd likely get the reply back: H*ll no. No. (Possible maybe due to age.) No. No. No. Heck no. Yes. Maybe. (Depends on whether he wants to play again this year.) No. Maybe. No. Which puts him POSSIBLY in the top 10, if those are the only guys you look at. Doubt Vegas would send Eichel back for him either, just picking one name that isn't in that top 12 list. Petterson and Zibanejad would likely be a no and a maybe too. People tend to like their own guys and even overrate them because they see them all the time and know for sure what their ceilings are and see them reach it every so often.

So they have Kulich getting the promotion rather than Rousek. Interesting. Still expect that one to play out the other way but would definitely not have any money on it. Kulich is a driven mofo.

And yet roughly 1/2 of the coaching staff in Ra-cha-cha has already left for other organizations.

Well, personally fail to see how your post does "move the conversation forward" because the reason Thompson got moved to W last season was he was ineffective at C while playing through the injury. So, no, in the case where Thompson CAN'T effectively play center, it doesn't make sense to keep Thompson at C. Which is why my response to you was that my preference (under normal circumstances) would be to have Thompson at C. And pointed out that the post you were referring to was not advocating for Thompson to be moved from C. Were your post responding to my post to have been in response to @PerreaultForever's post expect THAT would've driven the conversation further than your actual post in response to him. My 2 cents. YMMV.

As long as the players collectively get a precise percentage of HRR, wtf would any member of the NHLPA be unhappy about players on a different team getting "underpaid." The pie is going to be the exact same size at the end of the day regardless of how it gets sliced. And if Tage Thompson (just as an example) is getting $3MM less than he "should" that's $3MM less going into the denominator when the final escrow payments/refunds get calculated. It still is amazing that people worry about the nominal $'s that are there and that somehow by having the nominal $'s increasing for some players that it will magically increase ACTUAL $'s that players in general take home. (Yes, having a larger nominal contract will cause that particular player's take home pay to go up; but it actually LOWERS the take home pay of every other player in the league.) Face values of contracts being greater does NOT increase the amount of money that players get. Increasing ticket sales, concession sales, merchandise sales, and TV and streaming revenues is how players get more money. And players should be mildly ticked when somebody gets their contract bought out or goes onto BF-LTIR but effectively retires because that's money that counts against the player's share that ends up going to guys that aren't even playing. And lastly, these guys are taking the "team friendly" deals because they WANT their teammates to be here too. There is only so much nominal money available under the salary cap and if every guy squeezes every $ out of the team that they can (which is their right and do not begrudge the guys that do so) then they necessarily won't be able to play with all the guys they want to be playing with.

Personally expect that Mittelstadt is going to get moved to a wing to cover for Quinn's absence. But whether he's a W or a C this season, haven't advocated ANY lineups where Thompson isn't playing C. (Pretty sure haven't advocated moving Cozens to a W either barring additional injuries / in game adjustments due to score/ time remaining.) Was VERY specific in what my post you are quoting was in reference to. A very respected poster stated that he couldn't think of any scenario with Thompson at W; was merely reminding him that it happened last season; additionally Tommer actually played pretty well there.

Success being relative. They had 10 more points than the 2nd best team of the tank/post-tank era. They had, until the final 10 game segment, some of the worst goaltending of that era. And with coaches, you should ALWAYS want to have them on a contract through at least the end of the next season or else they can walk away as soon as the current season is done even for a lateral move. Nobody's going to prevent a guy from moving up the food chain with another organization, but you can keep guys from just walking away. And you can always can them if you choose. It's Daddy Bigbucks money; have no issues whatsoever with him spending it.

There definitely was an evolution in his game last season. A lot of people have Rousek written into the Sabres lineup this October (including yours truly, but only have it down in pencil), but Kulich is going to give him a good run for his money. It's a shame neither are projecting at this point as an NHL C or Jost's spot in the top 12 (with Quinn out) would be in serious jeopardy. (It could be anyhow if they keep both Mittelstadt and Krebs at C; but if Kulich could slide into Krebs' 4C role between Okposo and Girgensons then Jost would be this year's Hinostroza.)

He played on the wing last season when recovering from an injury down the stretch. There's 1 scenario where it happens.

Except they didn't have one of the best PPs for most of the year. They had a several week stretch where the PP was absolutely lights out starting just before Cozens got moved to the top unit but it didn't start the year great and it fell off the face of the earth the last couple of months of the season. The entry on the PP was bad the entire season. Considering the talent on the PP, personally was extremely frustrated with the overall play of that unit (the aforementioned stretch where it was beyond good not withstanding). That unit has to be run better this season because they aren't going to be facing a steady diet of backup goalies this year. Agree with most of the rest of your post, but the PP for most of the season was relatively terrible.

Nope. The mascot hockey game. That was AWESOME. Sabretooth scored a goal!

ftfy.

So you were SERIOUSLY ASKING IF THE SABRES WOULD KEEP 9 OR 10 D on the SABRES ACTIVE 23 MAN roster? Holy funk Batman. And, would the Amerks be better off with career AHLers Prow and Davies or Clague and Bryson? Hmm, that's almost as difficult a Q to answer as whether they'll keep 9 or 10 guys on the parent team's 23 man roster. Enjoy Jacksonville Jeremy and Ethan. Do you think if they keep Comrie and UPL that they'll carry Tokarski too on the 23 man roster? Enquiring minds want to know. 😜