Taro T

People were talking about Edwards sounding off last year. (Refuse to watch the NESN feed of anything if there are ANY other options, so don't know how far off he was.) Hoping he doesn't have the disease that Ted Darling had. He caught a lot of flack for sounding drunk on mic though it couldn't have been further from the truth.

Pretty sure the Sabres website isn't showing the game. It's on MSG (well, the NESN broadcast is on MSG).

Considering the MSG feed is the NESN feed, yep, if you get the game picked up by SN you'll be getting the NESN feed. Unless the seats are really good (and a corner 21 rows up probably doesn't qualify) $25 is a tough sell for a preseason game. $20 seems to be a price point that will get you better results. (He says probably 3 minutes before your seasts sell for $25 each. LOL)

Guess we're losing Austin Powers as a Sabres fan. (Yes, realize his alter ego is actually a Loafs fan. It's a friggin' joke.)

On 1st glance appears Kulich is getting the short end of the stick, but until Tuch became a day of scratch, Kulich was going to get an opportunity with Mittelstadt and Tuch.

And that was probably in his win vs Buffalo that year. 😉

It definitely will be hard. Which is why the expectation is 103 and not 123. But, should they get to 103, and that is very doable provided at least 1 of Comrie or UPL isn't the same tire fire as last year and it's still doable if they are exactly what they were last year but there is no margin for error to get to that mark, they WILL be in the playoffs. Convert 4 regulation losses from last year into W's and another 4 into OT/SO losses and they're at 103. Very realistic levels of improvement.

😄 Knew somebody would go there. Didn't expect it to be you. No biggie.

Considering other Canadians have complained of the same issue, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!

Why do the Bungles dress up like Zebras every so often? Do they really espect the refs to think they're all in it together if they dress that way?

True. But the Sabres only need to get ahead of 1 of the Bruins, Lightning, Panthers, or Islanders while staying ahead of Ottawa, Detriot, Pittsburgh, and Washington. Expecting they should get ahead of 2 of those 4 (NYI & 1 other, not sure which other right now) while staying ahead of at least 3 of those 4 (Karlsson MIGHT be able to will the rest of the over the hill gang through to one final playoff run, but don't expect it; the Otters will be a challenge. But as long as the Sabres get ahead of 2 of those 4 ahead of them, getting passed by the Otters isn't the end of the world should it happen.) Personally am expecting the Sabres to be 3rd in the division or the WC1. But we shall see soon enough.

If Vancouver Island White Caps count he is. Otherwise, not so much.

Another game to watch with some CDs playing. 😉

IF Benson makes it out of camp (not a given, but a realistic possibility), could see them keeping Savoie around at least until his shoulder is healed and he gets a legit shot to make or not make the team. He could get the conditioning assignment to the Amerks and if he shows he should be a level higher than that could get his shot in Buffalo. As long as he doesn't get into a 10th game with the Sabres, it wouldn't matter as far as his ELC is concerned and the extra player getting carried wouldn't affect the team's ability to stay under the cap either.

Have been more or less with you on this one, but the bolded is a bridge too far. With the possible exception of maybe someday a female goalie or 2 making it, don't ever see female players making it to the NHL even in an as "contactless" as possible a sport where players are flying around on skates can be made to be. The most talented women players of all time like Hailey Wickenheiser or Cammi Granato never came close to making it in a men's pro league and can't see a scenario where the next generation's versions of them make it either. (Would be cool if they could somehow, but just simply don't ever see it happening.) And for a female goalie to make it, she'd need some absolutely phenomenal reflexes &/or have the female equivalent of Tage Thompson's physique (or likely both). A rather tall woman of 5'8" - 5'10" would still be significantly smaller than even a guy like Levi that people question (not necessarily here he's not getting questioned, but he does get questioned because of the size) and would leave quite a bit of space on that "top shelf" for the league's snipers to attempt to feast on. NOBODY is trying to take fighting out of the game to allow people with XX chromosomes to make the show.

The D will need to bring their A game, but if they can keep Hill and the rest from getting away clean at the line, it will force Tua to hold the ball longer. And if the D-line can do against Miami's O-line what it did the 1st 3 games (even though they had few sacks the 1st 2 games, they had plenty of pressure) well then we might be able to see if the Jujitsu training has actually worked for Tua or if he'll suffer another "ankle" injury. Allen tends to play his best against these guys. The O-line dominated one of the most heralded front 4's this past Sunday and Spencer Brown handled Crosby the week before (one week after looking like a turnstile). Miami's D is nowhere near as formidible as their O is. The Bills can keep up in a shootout if it comes to that. Am really looking forward to Sunday's game. (And should the Bills win, and they should ;) , then the entire AFC East a mere 4 weeks in will have daisy chained each other to a 1-1 divisional record.)

Of course there can be and is a counter to your narrative. @LGR4GM, amongst others but he most vociferously, has disagreed with you often on this issue. And Adams has wanted skill from even his physical guys too. That's why the guys mentioned in the other post are gone.

And you keep harping on the ONE staged fight the Sabres had last year. If it isn't Stillman's 1st game as a Sabre it probably doesn't happen. But, suppose in addition to preventing that one staged fight, your fighting ban finds both (all 3? (ottomh, not sure if he had 2 or 3 last year)) of Krebs fights as the stick swinging incidents that got Mike Ramsey a suspension so many years ago? You hand wave away that possibility. Not so sure that is valid expectation.

So, you don't have any evidence to support your claim that most fighting in today's game is gratuitous staged fighting. No biggie. But when your base presumption isn't supported, you aren't going to win many converts to your emotional based position. My 2 cents. Clearly, ymmv.

Lol, KA inherited players like Simmonds, Frolik, Vesey, Sobotka, Larsson, Asplund, Lazar, and Kahun among others who couldn't score on an even semi-regular basis if their lives depended upon it which is why KA backfilled his roster with skilled players. Also just because you add a physical player via FA that doesn’t mean that will be their role with the Sabres. Sabres HCDG said the other day that he is going to see how Connor Clifton works with Rasmus Dahlin to focus on being a 2 way D who uses his excellent skating to get the transition game going because that is his role to the NHL. Add that the Sabres largest power forwards Tuch, Cozens, and Greenway will be major cogs on the top line, the 2nd line, and any of the 3 scoring lines. Let’s also look at Cozen’s development. Once DG convinced one of the biggest forwards to start trusting in his shot and his instincts he blossomed offensively and defensively. Just imagine if Greenway would get the same message. The biggest change is on defense. Enter skaters who can play tough in Johnson and Clifton and exit physical guys that can't score like Fitzgerald and Lyubushkin while moving everybody's 2nd favorite Sabres D-man from the top pairing to the bottom pairing. Let’s face it, your team doesn’t score nearly 300 goals, have a top 10 PP and be amongst the league leaders in high danger chances created without being willing to continually attack the other team and forecheck with abandon. My, how easy it is to draw a completely different picture from the same data when one only wants to focus on a portion of the picture and ignore anything that runs counter to the narrative. 😉

You can continue to state that, but without any evidence to back the statement up, it doesn't really mean much. You were provided ONE example of a staged fight and then state that most all of them are because of that one example. That isn't convincing. 10 years ago, sure, most all fights were staged. But with fighting as rare as it has become, personally haven't seen that to be the case at present. (And again, the Sabres games may be aberations but that's the data set am going by. You haven't provided anything in this conversation to cause one to believe their games are the aberation.) And if you have evidence, will readily chance the stance on this issue. And if the fights ARE heat of the moment events to any reasonably significant degree, find your stance that players that fight should be in jail to be more than a bit excessive. Also, doubt it would do anything at all (and might actually exacerabate a presently relatively infrequent issue) to alleviate @SwampD's concerns that viscious stick swinging incidents would become more prevalent.

Again, primarily only watch Sabres games, but how many staged fights do you see? The Sabres had about 6 fights the entire year and Krebs was in at least 2 if not 3 of them. The Stillman fight (which ended very poorly for him) could probably be put in that category. But what other one gets there?

That is a big part of what an outright fighting ban would likely bring. The game is too fast with too many potential ways to REALLY mess somebody up to not allow the occassional spontaneous fight. My 2 cents; clearly not everyone agrees. Actually believe they're at a pretty good spot wrt fighting. It still happens occassionally but it is far from an every game thing and the staged "we need to change the momentum" fight is almost a thing of the past. (Haven't watched much non-Sabres NHL hockey the past few years; just started back on that last year. So, that last observation might not be accurate leaguewide.)

Knew somebody was going to pay Edmonds big bucks and was pretty sure it wouldn't be Buffalo. Thankfully the train wreck that is Chicago REALLY wanted him. Will be interesting to see how Bernard does this coming week. Should be a really good game. Glad it is in Buffalo. Pretty good chance the Bills have the AFC DPotW 1 week after having the AFC OPotW. Bass for AFC STPotW next week? Would take it.

Yeah, nobody (except probably Okposo) will be wearing a C in any of these preseason games. Presuming he'll be the captain again this year. If that's up in the air, even he might not get to wear the C before they head to the Island for the opener.