Taro T

Oh yeah, the Sabres (and their fans) have suffered immensely under the current ownership. And the owners' non-energy related and non-sports entities have all seemed far less than ideal at best. But the Sabres are the only one of the sports teams they've owned for any appreciable time that haven't been at the top of tier. And, it seems (provided GT holds up) that the Sabres are poised to join those other squads. Ownership in general does energy well and (w/ the notable exception for the Sabres) sports as well too.

Basham's a Jint. Apparently a late round pick swap accompanies the move.

Well, it would seem to be at least 3 organizations (and possibly 5) not including any management aspect PSE had over the tennis pheonom's activities. Presumably the Amerks & Jacksonville still fall under the Sabres direction and the Bandits (and Kin-ig-hit Hawks) do their own things as well. It also SEEMS that Roth and Pegula are both still actively involved in the Bills. So, the only things that changed from this vantage point are all the little sideline projects might be gone and maybe running Harbor Center is now its own thing as well. Those that have speculated that this is pretty much a move used to bow to the reality that K. Pegula can no longer keep all her irons on the fire and T. Pegula doesn't want to champion all those side endeavors seem to be onto something.

Didn't look through the thread, so apologies if this one's been used: Jokiharju - Krebs - Greenway Dahlin - Johnson Levi (Henri likes to join the rush, why not leave him up there?) Or just play SH: Quinn - Krebs Dahlin - Johnson Levi Realize there are combinations that do have 3 F's, 2 D, & a G that don't include 26 & 27; but those 2 were not optional IMHO. And with only 47 digits left, until somebody reclaims 9 there aren't many actual functional lineups that wouldn't get blown up. As soon as somebody does take that number, then swap Rousek in for Greenway and #9 for Henri.

If the Sabres leave, this kid just got a HUGE defacto raise and way more free time. Would really rather they didn't and don't expect they will.

It could also be a precursor to eventually having the kids splitting up the empire when Terry's and Kim's trips around the sun on this marble come to an end. No idea which kids get to split the $3B+ Bills and which one ends up with the significantly less valuable Sabres. Reminds one of this:

Glad that they will finally be fixing the sound system. Have taken to putting in ear plugs when going to the rink because it is so loud at our seats. Saw that they'll be, in theory, improving the food in the rink. Wonder if they'll address the lack of consistency of quality from one stand to another? That's nearly as big an issue as the food in general being subpar. They're going to have a 1,000 member fan food council? They haven't had the 20 or so member regular fan council meet in over a year. Get that active again before moving on to this other thing.

Dan Kelly should be ahead of Emrick. Other than that, nice choices. Hewitt, Kelly, Gallivan, and Jeaneret are THE 4 in hockey.

Considering we don't know what Johnson has left in the tank and Jokiharju is a (very) poor man's Dahlin or Power with significant issues in transition back into his own zone and in 5v5 in zone coverage (though he is good at in zone PK coverage, go figure) you can say Lyubushkin is at absolute best the 7 on this team but it wasn't necessarily the case. Neglecting the politics that come with those 2 players pencilled in on the 3rd pairing, there were 3 players on this roster that could've been either the 5 or 6. Plus, this team will NOT have the D remain as healthy as the F's were last year. They need at least 8 guys that can take a regular shift for long stretches and neither Bryson nor Clague give one the "warm fuzzies" should they need to play in 10 or so consecutive games. (1 game, sure; 2 games, maybe. But no way is it a good thing to have either of those in the lineup for a long stretch.) Still hoping this was the move that's a precursor to another D man coming in. That puts Stillman back into the 8 spot and Johnson and Jokiharju rotating into the 6 from the 7. With Clague, Bryson, and Johnson available to be the 3rd guy brought in for a couple of games when the injury bug is severe. Otherwise, they just made it substantially harder to win games when Samuelsson and X are out. Which we all know is almost assuredly going to happen at some point.

Don't forget the sideline throw to Davis that got called back because of another Brown penalty. Absolutely. Thought a few of those calls were very ticky-tack. But even having 8 penalties in a full game is bad; were they only called 8 times in the 1st half it would still have been horrendously bad and something they have to fix. Am hoping the offensive penalties were due in most part to guys knowing they were on islands against very good pass rushers which would not happen in the regular season. Was extremely disappointed in Elam's play on the other side of the ball. Flip Benford's and Elam's draft slots and nobody cares, but a 1st rounder looking so bad in his 2nd season is problematic. Chalked Elam's problems getting on the field last year as being due to being a man corner in a zone D but he's got to figure this out. If Bernard isn't back soon could see Beane trading for a MLB. Dotson looked very bad in that role.

USED the Wolves of the AHL for the past 3 years. But Chicago didn't renew the affiliation agreement. Don't know nor care enough about the Canes to find out where they'll be sending their prospects this year. Hades works just fine.

He played injured a LOT last year. When healthy, he was a solid stay at home D-man. Was really looking forward to seeing how he'd perform this year in his 2nd year in Granato's very different style of play; especially if he would stay healthy. Spacek went from a healthy scratch in the playoffs in his 1st season to team captain at the innaugural Ice Bowl. D-men often look significantly better in their 2nd season on a new team than they did in their 1st season. But, from Granato's perspective he can now justify his love of all things Jokiharju and keeping him in the top 6. Was a much closer call should Lyubushkin been back. Still hoping this means a bigger D trade is in the works. Because if they do bring in another true top 4 quality D-man, can see not wanting to have 11 NHL capable D-men in the organization (not necessarily 11 GOOD NHL D-men as Bryson and Clague aren't, but there are at least a handful of NHL teams that they could legitimately be the designated pressbox sitter when fully healthy and it would be terribly discouraging to know there were 4 guys ahead of you (plus they may want to look at Ryan Johnson before going to the 10 or 11 should injuries hit hard) to actually play in the NHL again).

There'd better be something else happening because that makes no sense in and of itself.

RIP RJ. You were the soundtrack to some great memories.

And to further this thought, it isn't Rousek (or Olofsson) replacing Quinn. Because Rousek (or VO) isn't getting 15 minutes. It's either Mittelstadt or Peterka covering his time with Rousek (or VO) getting 8 - 11 minutes. And Rousek (or VO) is getting easier minutes than Quinn would've gotten. Yes, there's a downgrade. But the downgrade is from the guy that was your 9th or 10th forward being replaced by your 13th F because 5/6 being replaced by 5/6/7/8 (depending upon how one defines each slot) isn't a particular downgrade. But where bringing in a Tatar (as an example) really helps is when the 2nd F injury occurs. Tatar would be far more effective (in all likelihood) than the 14th F would be.

Agree that is likely the way how the line shuffling ends up with Quinn out of the lineup. But am almost as disappointed in Quinn being out for not getting to see what Granato considers this roster's optimal deployment as am disappointed in not getting to see how much Quinn would've improved over the summer right from day 1.

Thought he was the 3rd best prospect, but we did luck out and he eventually became the best of that bunch. (Not that it matters to your post ...)

Would give up Rosen for Hellebucyk. That's the best piece to go into the package for him IMHO w/out an extension. And extension or not, Levi will NOT be a part of the package for him.

It is an interesting Q but would be surprised if the cap doesn't go up significantly next year because of 3 items: 1 - as stated above, the cap has been artificially reduced while the players paid the owners back the money they fronted in '20 and '21. Getting the players back up to 50% of HRR should result in a fairly large jump even if one of the revenue streams does take a hit; 2 - the biggest TV money is owed to the national TV contracts and them broadcasting the playoffs. That doesn't get effected by the regional networks entering bankruptcy; and 3 - the teams should be able to find alternatives to the RSNs that are having difficulties by '24-'25 and if the money from the RSNs is flowing in again then it won't affect the leaguewide revenues very significantly. But that could be a big part of why the salary cap didn't go up much at all this year.

We've worked the other 3 easy permutations of the subject, this is the last one we can come up with before just getting silly with things like "Adams may not be good, but the Sabres may still be good despite that" or "Adams is dreamy, but the Sabres still disappoint; wtf is going on." So, this seems to be the thread for those that aren't certain that Adams is good or evil but are leaning towards evil and also leaning towards the Sabres being a disappointment once again because of that. @Eleven, you're welcome. 😜

Wonder what ECHL team THEY have an affiliation with. Expecting that's where he'll spend most of the year. What a disappointment he turned out to be.

He very well could be another Miller. He absolutely has 'it.' and he's going to be very entertaining to watch for a LONG time. But Miller was bawling his eyes out after getting lit up by Detroit. IF Levi pans out this season, the backup situation becomes less important but they're still relying on Comrie &/or UPL for 32 or so games. It doesn't become moot until point 100 is in the books.

Still am of the opinion that Tokarski was brought in to be the 3rd goalie should they not be able to upgrade the backup position and the loser of the internal competition gets claimed on waivers. Have way more faith in him than in Subban. But if Tokarski is the regular backup, there will be a book on him and he will get exposed. But filling in for a handful of games, he should be fine - just like he was when called into desperation duty in the past. Still am of the opinion that Tokarski was brought in to be the 3rd goalie should they not be able to upgrade the backup position and the loser of the internal competition gets claimed on waivers. Have way more faith in him than in Subban. But if Tokarski is the regular backup, there will be a book on him and he will get exposed. But filling in for a handful of games, he should be fine - just like he was when called into desperation duty in the past.

The eye test also says Comrie is better. And it's a small item, but telling IMHO, when they did their 1st STH Q&A session this season the guy sitting next to Power was Comrie NOT UPL. You do that to get your customers to buy in on the guy you've bought into; let them get to know the guy in a small part the way you and his teammates know him. (Btw, the very 1st one of those that was Zoom only had (nearly) everybody's favorite whipping boy at the start of last season Mittelstadt on the screen with Skinner.) But, as good as Adams and his team are at identifying good prospects, he & they have been equally bad at identifying and landing solid GTing. At this point, would like to know who Lombardi had making those calls when he was in SJ and then LA, and pay that guy a truck ton of cash to make those calls in Buffalo. Am confident in Adams being able to identify good skaters. But the next good ready NOW goalie that he brings in will be the 1st. Am hopeful and reasonably confident that Comrie can be a good backup if he stays healthy. But that isn't a lock. Have much less faith in UPL. And would be much more willing to run with Comrie as the backup if there was an Ullmark or even a Swayman ahead of him; but there is just too much risk that Levi won't be Price right out of the gate and the failure to get 2 more points last year has the customer base reluctant at best to give another pass to another playoffless year.

True. But had even 1 of the 3 stayed healthy all season, liking their chances to have converted that 1 regulation loss into a W that they needed to get in and get pasted by Carolina.