Taro T

Great question. Just don't know.

It will. And for the 1st time in what seems like forever, Canada Day might actually be fun once again as we get to open a new present or 2. (Not expecting any monster splashes, but any and all of a GT, a 4D, and maybe a power W could all show up that day. Maybe even a 4C that helps lock down the PK, too.) The draft could be interesting too, but not for the ususal "who are the Sabres getting with this year's top 10 pick" and "what disgruntled vet might go out for an extra 1st" reasons. It could be, what other team's disgruntled vet are the Sabres getting for their 1st, Olofsson, and some prospect that only about 3 people here will even remember is in the Sabres 50 bodies count.

Well, personally, am expecting the Thompson line to be back together next year and the Cozens line as well. But there are a lot of permutations that could work and we still haven't seen any of the off-season moves yet. If Granato has a hunch, will give him the benefit of the doubt as a couple of his moves (Thompson to C, Krebs to 4C) worked extremely well and were NOT intuitively obvious at the time the move was made.

Hoping they draft a D with that pick (well, actually, hoping they trade it and Olofsson for a D that is more on this team's current time line) but it doesn't sound like any D worth a 1st round pick will be available at that pick. Would rather see another F taken there, if that is in fact the case, than see them reach. Expect Adams will take the best available (again, provided he hasn't traded the pick).

What's interesting in this is they should be trying to maximize Thompson's production as he certainly appears to be their best offensive player. (THAT isn't that interesting.) But what if Cozens is the 2nd best offensive player next year? Does Granato move 1 of them to wing to put them on a line together or does he keep them both at C and give Tage the top wingers and Cozens the 2nd best wingers? Still say that how they decide to use Greenway (keeping him in a bottom 6 role or bouncing him higher to forecheck and also keep opponents from teeing off on his linemates; or might he get put onto the 2nd line with the intention of inflicting punishment on the OTHER team's top line?) will be the key decision for how the other lines get deployed. And, getting back to Krebs, expect him as either the 3C or 4C, but depending on what piece(s) get brought in at F, maybe HE slides to a wing? In that other thread, the thought of Tom Wilson as a Sabre is quite intriguing as they could have a beast forechecker on all of the top 3 lines and the 4th line could still have Girgensons who isn't a beast but is quite good in that role too.

That just blew up my bracket. ;)

He definitely had / has a knack for D-men. Would take him back in a heartbeat as an AGM tasked specifically to that 1 area. But he did not do a good job with choosing coaches (2 very big whiffs), goaltenders, filling out the F's, nor contracts. Keep him completely away from those and sure, as said above, would take him back to focus on the D if he were masochistic enough to want to come back in that limited role.

The bolded is interesting. At the B&G Insights last year, asked Adams if the FO was where he wanted it or if he still wanted to add people. He'd said at that time that the analytics was set and he'd like to have added 1 more scout and possibly 1 more development coach. Didn't have a chance to check if those positions were filled and also didn't have a chance to ask about what changes he wanted to make this year. (And unfortunately, nobody else asked either.)

Would be very unhappy to see him leave this soon after getting here. Let them hire Botterill and keep Ventura here 3-4 more years so his revamps to how things are done here are ingrained. He'll be a GM someday. Just don't make it happen NOW.

What is overall grade for the season? B. Considered a B+, but believe it fell just short of that. What grade would you give Adams and Granato (including his staff)? Adams B+; Granato B. The PP needed to not be so Jeckyl & Hyde and in-game decision making (particularly non-line matching at home) needed to be less head scratching to get Granato an A-. Goaltending kept Adams short of an A. What grade would you give the Forwards, the Defense and the Goaltenders? Forwards: A+ in the offensive end. C- in their own end. Defense: B in the offensive end. C- in their own end. Goalies: C-. They didn't get much support but also let in far too many soft goals / goals at bad times. Far too inconsistent to rate them higher a a group. What grade would you give the Power Play and the Penalty Kill? PP: C-. It was an A++ for ~6 weeks and a D- the rest of the season. PK: D-. Barely deserved a passing grade. It was awful nearly the entire season. Who is your MVP? Dahlin. Who is your ROY? Power. (Levi will still qualify next year, so didn't give it to him for this season.) Owen should get votes for the Calder. Who is your MIP (most improved player)? There are several to choose from but considering how the narrative on his play has changed will go w/ Mittelstadt. Who is your unsung hero? He might be too sung to qualify, but will go w/ Samuelsson. And some unasked categories: Who is the team's Heart & Soul? Tuch - hands down. He bleeds Sabres B&G and does all the little things right. IMHO he is this team's leader. Who will make the biggest jump by October? If he has faith in his shot by then, Power. If not, Quinn. Darkhorse: Krebs. Who was the biggest disappointment? Olofsson. With being healthy pretty much all year and getting 3rd line usage and constant PP usage thought he could've really brought more to the table than he did. He improved his game quite a bit last year while playing through the wrist/hand issue and thought he could continue to build on that this season. Of the players that got regular ice time, he's the one that stood out in that he didn't improve nearly as much from day 1 to day 186 as the rest of the skaters. Did the team exceed, fall short of, or meet your expectations? Met them overall. Though wouldn't have predicted a historically good road record nor a sub-0.500 home record, and there were several players that exceeded or fell short of expectations; overall they ended up right where they were expected to be.

What happened to Kulich? Didn't see him get injured. But we had to leave early as our table at Dinosaur was ready sooner than we expected.

Interesting list. Particularly how many of these guys that somebody interpreted as divers are guys that come off as being dirty players IMHO.

Agree. And do believe that is the team's goal - to be a Stanley Cup contender next season. Adams specifically has said he won't make winning the Stanley Cup the official hell or high water goal because there is too much luck involved in winning any one particular year. But his goal is to consistently be a Stanley Cup contender and everything that has happened to date makes me believe that goal legitimately becomes the goal this coming season. And as such, do believe that he is going to target an upgrade in net, a top 4 D-man, and a 4 C. Because those are the pieces that are missing to take them from they have a chance of doing that next year to they should be doing that next year.

Sorry. Didn't realize the Pacific division went to 10 teams with the addition of the 32nd team. They ONLY have 7 teams make the playoffs, so they have 3 teams miss out. My bad. D'oh!

Umm, Adams actually did make that move you are looking for once. He traded for Matt Murray. The trade was nixed by Murray, but that doesn't mean that Adams didn't put an offer that was acceptable to another GM for a veteran player. He also brought in Lyubushkin who is also a vet player. Expect (hope?) the Sabres bring in a vet like Varlamov and will give the crease to whichever goalie they still have under contract come October that is playing the best and his understudy will be the 2nd best of the bunch. And if there is no real separation between the top 2, they'd have a 1A / 1B situation. Also expect the vet will initially be given the starter's role and that Levi will be the 2nd guy but that will change by the following season at the latest and possibly by Christmas.

It"s actually 24 of 32. 4 divisions w/ unequal #'s of teams, so only the bottom 2 (bottom 3 in the 10 team division,) in each division don't make the playoffs. Amerks division has 7 teams, so 5 get in. those teams below 4th have to play a best of 3 game series against a team above them to get into the regular best of 7 16 team tourney. In the Amerks division the only play in round is 4 v 5. The division that has 9 10 teams out west has 7 get in and only the 1st place team gets a bye to the best of 7.

No. The 1st tiebreaker is Regulation Wins. Not total wins. The 2nd tiebreaker is ROW. Again, not total wins. Total wins is the 3rd tiebreaker. Then head to head (based on an even # of games played between the 2 teams, otherwise the 1st game in the city they played an extra game gets dropped).

Sure does seem that way.

And am not explaining this for you, but rather people reading our discussion. You like it. Fine. That doesn't mean that it isn't garbage. Am merely pointing out why that is the case for those that aren't as well versed in the topic. And remember, the reason this came up here is somebody asked what that metric was. So, there are people that are unfamiliar with it.

Simple. The league wants to incentivize winning in regulation and wants to deemphasize a glorified skills competition.

Is what it is. 6 teams were within 2 wins of a DeLuca 0.500. The stat says 4 of the 6 should've made the playoffs. Only 2 of them actually did. A stat that fails 1/3 of the time for anybody that has a record near the metric is IMHO trash. NHL 0.600 has incorrectly predicted a team making the playoffs exactly once in the modern era and that happened under very unusual circumstances over 50 years ago. You hit that mark, you make the playoffs. Period.

You know, the starting center and 1 of his wingers for the team that knocked the Sabres out of the playoffs most recently.

Sorry, it is a trash metric and the appeal of it is purely emotional.

If Thompson and Cozens are on the same line, let Cozens primarily take the C duties in his own end and let Thompson tend to be that 3F more with Cozens being 1F or 2F (basically, having Cozens as the W in the offensive zone with Tage as the C there). Very much the way Briere and Leino did it back the last time the Sabres were in the playoffs. Note, this doesn't mean that the expectation is they will be together again next year; just one example of how they could make it work.

The problem of being Kyle Okposo. Let's see: multimillionaire; hot wife; seemingly great kids; very well liked by his co-workers; loved by many in his community; on the verge of retiring and moving to where he grew up at an age where he can easily enjoy another 50 years of a great life. We should all be lucky enough to have these kinds of problems. ;)