Taro T

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.

Not sure who the announcers were, they didn't sound like Beninati and Laughlin. They WERE quite annoying. But the replays and ads complaints are simply because they were using the in arena video board feed. (Basically the Caps did the AHL.tv style thing.) When they are actually running a full broadcast crew their broadcast will be back up to NHL standards.

Good. Let 'em get the scoring out of their system this week. Next week they get to see how it feels to be the former WTFs.

Yeah, there was a bit of forethought in putting this game on directly opposite the Bills game. Due to the lineups people probably would've been madder had they been able to get to both games than they are that they can't.

That's cool and really glad your boy was able to get Thompson's JH. Our kids are old enough that it wasn't an issue for the one that came with us to not wait around in the autograph line. He was as good with getting to the bar and grabbing an early dinner as the rest of us were.

He's always signing autographs at those style events. So cool that he still enjoys doing that. We didn't go for any of the autographs that day as the line was seriously LONG. But did go to a couple of the STH events.

Yeah, Luce shows up at a lot of the events like the Draft Party and the Blue and Gold Insights. (Just meeting people at the bar for the B&GI. He hasn't been an active participant. But it is cool to say 'hi' to him.

So, maybe the teams knew what they were doing scheduling this one opposite the Bills game. No need to have fans in attendance or even paying attention to watch the (mainly) AHLers duke it out.

If there is, haven't found it. 😥

Considering Rousek (and Murray too) is being given a chance to see how he plays with Krebs, am actually now expecting he's getting pencilled into what was Okposo's spot and Okposo is pencilled in as Cozens' 2nd winger unless the kid playing with him right now absolutely forces his way onto the team. (In which case Okposo goes back to his normal role next to Krebs.) Really expect Jost is the 13 unless he forces his way higher into the lineup. But do agree, his role is not that which Kulich or Rosen would fill should they win a roster spot.

Not that it matters, but it does appear Granato considers Cozens the 2C and Mittelstadt the 3C as Mitts is on Thompson's squad and Dylan is on the other. Also, appears that Comrie and UPL are essentially considered to be equivalent (as they probably should) as they both are on the same team. No surprise that Tokarksi is the 4.