Taro T

Agree with most of what you've said and the bolded might be true or more accurately might become true. But for right now, we don't know that he can fill in anywhere but 4C & 3C. (Personally expect he'll be able to fill in higher, and still hold a VERY small amount of hope that he can become a Marchand-lite for the Sabres; but Marchand was putting up twice as many points as Krebs put up at similar ages and IIRC similar bottom 6 usage (though obviously as a W rather than a C.)

True. He doesn't dream of being a 3rd/4th liner. But he doesn't become a UFA for 5 more years. A lot of things can change in that time frame. He can have a Mittelstadt like jump in his play at some point, or maybe he just stagnates. A key piece of the what we all perceive as the Sabres core may himself stagnate or may have a club desperate to get him and make an offer to Adams that he simply can't refuse. He seems happy here and is growing into an NHLer. Expect him to have a role similar to his current one next year but with more PK & PP duty (like he was getting towards the very end) and whether he is centering the 4th line or the 3rd line or possibly moving to 3rd line winger will be a function of what other moves happen this summer. What to do with him LT doesn't need to be determined this off-season nor even next. Expect his next contract is a bridge while he and the club find out what he will become.

Haven't looked real close at the #'s, but that seems realistic.

Hopefully their 8 year deals come in just under those #'s, but for planning purposes would run with them.

It's that following year, '25-'26 when things will start to get tight and some players that they might like to keep around have to go to fit everybody into the bag. (Btw, expect that Dahlin and Power will be closer to $18 combined, but that still leaves them room to fill holes.)

Some of us actually disliked them from the days when the were the Whalers. Never played them in the playoffs but playing them 8 times/year leads to a general disdain. Rooting for a small market team, hate seeing other small market teams lose their team. Just too many boxes checked prior to that series to not dislike the Canes. Their fans being whiny and Ol' Camelface crying about Lindy Ruff right after winning the Stanley Cup just add to the distain. But personally, dislike the B's, Phlyers, Aisles, Loafs, and Sens way more than the Canes. The Canes are in the group with the Stars and the Pens (Rags and Krakers are in that group too just because, and the Bolts are getting there if they aren't already).

In a philosophical way, yes. But, considering the cap for that season won't be known until the end of the next season (and won't be known on a ballpark basis until the middle of next season), it can't have "huge" implications on who they can and cannot sign this off-season. They should be planning for a modest increase in the cap that season (though it could be a Billy Fuscillo HUGE increase) and basing their offers on how they see potential FA's slotting into the lineup with most everybody's next deal the milepost those FA offers are compared to. MHO.

It would make sense that winning a faceoff (cleanly) on the PK leads to a clear more often than not. But even that stat will be tempered by the rest of the variables. A clear against the Sabres will result in far fewer goals against over the course of the PK than it would against a team like Edmonton that is very good at zone entry on the PK. Because that one single clear won't necessarily only result in 15 seconds of non-zone time for the PP but could result in the full 2 minutes being shot. Personally, expect the teams do have their stats broken down to a microevent level (understanding that for some it makes the sample size too small to be meaningful) whereas the people doing this for random websites don't have nearly the resources to do that kind of analysis. (Also, wouldn't necessarily trust a website to be analyzing the data consistently enough to have the results be meaningful. One volunteer stat tracker could have a much different view on whether a face off was won or was won cleanly than another one would.) But, it would absolutely be cool if that research is being done by a source that is available to the fans (even though the data collection biases may leave it unreliable). Would be something else to talk about over the long off-season.

It'll blow up my bracket. But the NHL deserves to have the Aisles win this in 4 games. Knock a team that plays entertaining hockey out of the tourney and leave in one that the late '90's Devils look at and say 'holy ####, that is some dull hockey; never seen anything so brutally dull."

Fix the 2 A's above and most of the rest will be fixed as a result. (Easier said than done.)

Yes Adams finally is at a point where he doesn't absolutely HAVE to do anything to have a good team. But also believe he is smart enough to know that he has the team he has and understands what the holes are. And that he very likely can fill those holes using only assets that aren't in the long term plans here &/or only cost cap space. His plan seems to be on the right track. He followed it and he stuck to it. He's gotten to this point without giving up any of the assets he does still see as fitting in to the LT picture. (He actually has more assets at F than he'll be able to keep there in a couple of seasons, which means he can either move some for futures to keep the window open or for then current holes to increase the chances of doing damage while the window is open.) Realize that many of us are frustrated with missing the playoffs again, and expect that Adams is frustrated by it too, but based on his background and what he's been saying for the past 2 years really believe that he doesn't see as much value in the players getting playoff experience this year as many here believe it has. They beat playoff teams down the stretch when they were in desperation mode. (They also lost to a couple. It's what midlevel teams do.) Expect Adams and Granato see the value in that and find that valuable enough of a teaching tool moving forward that a handful of playoff games wasn't worth what it would cost in other assets that he wants to keep. (And interestingly, he was willing to give up something that he still has under his control for Chychrun. Besides this year's 1st, curious what the other part(s) was (were).)

Having been through the desert of pretty much no C spine for much of the last decade (and early on, not having enough quality players to support their TWO good C's) agree that ideally the C's are the top F's. But just find it interesting that for the 1st time in a long time, there are actual options to have very possibly 4 quality lines and they can be stacked like the traditional 1, 2, 3 scoring lines with a 4th 2 way line or a 1A, 1B, 1D and a 4th line and a few permutations in between. (Until Olofsson gets traded, and really expect he will be, this team has 10 guys that are legitimately top 9 F's (several of which are significantly better than that) plus Jost who can adequately fill in there. And that doesn't include any of the kids playing in Junior or Ra-cha-cha that might be good enough to be top 9 as well. And, unless they bring in a Tom Wilson, believe that the key to how Granato will be deploying his lines will come down to whether he wants Greenway to be part of a Minny style line he just left &/or an Aisles 4th line or whether he wants him to be running shotgun to Thompson, Cozens, or both to keep opposing teams from taking liberties with his best players. And, keeping Krebs in this post, could see him at 3C, 4C, or 3W (in that order) in the mix of what Granato puts together. And, based on how much Krebs improved from October to his mid-season play with the 4th line to where he was at the end of the season, really do believe that Krebs could be fine at W now that he's finally adjusted to the speed and physicality that happens at this level.

Your travel plans are keeping you from spending 10 minutes (tops) on line? Those must be some seriously elaborate plans. ;)

He does seem to be the Andrea Kramer of the hockey world.

Pretty sure the falloff in his play you observed was due to an elbow injury rather than pining for his true love during a game.

Not sure. Expect it comes from Krebs not being ready for the NHL last year though he was here more than just the 2 games the other guys got and also his being REALLY bad in his own end in October. Once people have an idea of what they believe a player to be, it is really hard for many to revise that idea until well past the point that it is obvious that the player has grown. (Or perhaps regressed. That unwillingness to change a view of a player is there for the guys coming back down from their peaks too.)

Agree. But playing devil's advocate, it's tough to read much into moves like that when the team is so close to the salary floor. While they were in Ra-cha-cha ~1/3 of their salary was still counting towards the Sabres cap payroll.

And that is different from the regular season how exactly? ;)

But you not caring doesn't really mean a whole lot. Adams caring would.

Hadn't realized it until just now, but not only did the Ducks take the 32nd spot in the NHL, but their farm club the San Diego Gulls finished in 32nd in the AHL by a full 20 points less than the 31st club had. Maybe Johnson wants to go there, not because of his dad but because he thinks he can be in their top 4 on day 1 and not have to worry about getting bumped for about 4 years. Didn't realize what a mess than or-gan-eye-zay-shun actually is. Wow. (And the Bruins farm club had the 3rd best record in the league and the best in the east. :censored: )

27 RWs to 25 RWs.

But no Marys. We don't need a Mary.

Is Luke, Luke, Tyce played like Duck, Duck, Goose but on skates? Sounds fun.

You won't be the only one.

Like the idea of Grzelcyk but doubt Adams would accept Riley as part of the deal. He seems to be pretty adamant about avoiding grabbing guys that don't want to be here. And, considering he cleared waivers this year, expect he'd start the year in Ra-cha-cha were he in the fold and can't see him happy about it.