Taro T

Not opposed to Schenn for the right price. But am tired of them consistently trading away their 3rd. It effectively keeps them out of the RFA market because they need to have their 3rd available to make offers for the non-name guys that could both want to be in Buffalo and improve the team.

They outplayed them last time minus Samuelsson but didn't get to the net enough and made Mobtembeault look like Roy. Hopefully Muel being back inspires them. Sabres should win. (Habs fans expect a win too. Disappoint them.)

The bolded is a huge part of the problem. Since "suffering" was announced they've had Regier sell off most of the usable assets primarily for picks but also a few prospects. They followed that up w/ Murray who continued the selloff to guarantee McRichel and then was more than willing to overspend prospects & picks to ensure he got the horses, er, players he wanted regardless of whether those players fit in the room. He wanted to build a heavy team ala the Kings from earlier that decade. He eas followed by Botterill who wanted to rebuild Pittsburgh or Chicago and got rid of pretty much all of the non-2nd overall pick forwards Murray had accumulated and never saw a 3rd round draft pick tjat wasn't worth an overpriced 3rd liner that had been a 5th liner elsewhere but would be used as a 2nd liner in Buffalo. Adams is now trying to follow the Beane blueprint and has jettisoned most all of J-Botts NHLers but has kept most of his prospects. 3 major direction changes beyond the initial major direction change all in only 11 years.

Shouldn't be news to anyone, but Troy Aikman is a moron. Buck wished him a happy birthday and Aikman thanked him & said "65, can you believe it?" No dumb arse, we can't. You were born 12/21/66 which makes you 56, not 65.

And, again, it's just a thought/speculation. Not saying it's right nor wrong. So, can't say that he "really" wouldn't mind it. (Can't say he wouldn't either.)

Not necessarily. It's just a concern. One that hasn't been alleviated nor confirmed to date.

Well, that gets back to a comment this kid was making this summer. Want to believe that Adams is sincere about wanting to win this year (though it only being a co-goal w/ development) but can't help but wonder if he really wouldn't mind 1 final really high draft pick before finally making winning the primary goal of the hockey department.

And if you're right and he is Bjork 2.0 there is nothing particularly lost. They had Bjork 1.0 up in the press box. If you're wrong, then they are better off. This was nost likely a nothing move. Have no issues with it. And it has nothing to do w/ moves, or lack thereof, on D and in G. So those complaining about it in that context are off-base. Things that are unrelated even when one of them is frustrating remain unrelated.

BUT PILUT AND FITZGERALD ARE THE TOP PAIRING. WE READ IT ON THE INTERNET. It MUST be true.

Not happy about his stay at the cap floor philosophy. His argument that it is to maintain flexibility in the future and have money to retain the current players that earn raises and not simply to be cheap seems plausible but would be more credible if he actually even used some of that cap space to take on an overpaid guy or 2 on the last year of a contract for prospects or picks. The cap space they have today vaporizes in mid-April. If some of it gets converted into assets that retain value that puts them so much closer to getting out of this Groundhog's Day of futility and having that exit back into the NHL that much more sustainable.

Whatevs. Come April their heros will be joining the Sabres on the links about 12 days later. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Yeah, where Heather slots the lines/pairings has been interesting. Expect she just writes them down when she actually notices them and then just tweets them out in that order.

Last year, except for Allen, they hardly ever ran before the loss in Tampa but they did so pretty effectively afterwards. And won a lot of games. Maybe the Vikes & 1st Q of Cleveland was this year's wake up call.

Good to see Girgensons back. Any word on how long Okposo is expected to be out.

Expect they will this offseason. (Of course, thought they'd do more this offseason than just bring in Lyubushkin & wait until the 3rd (?) round to draft one. Really hope they didn't consider bringing Pilut back as having brought in another top 4 guy. That he went down to start the year says they didn't, but not bringing any other legit NHLer says they might've.) And IMHO they are like Ruhwedel. Adequate NHLers if the top 2 pairings are legit; legitimately bad if they aren't. And there are way more of those guys than there are NHL jobs available.

Same thing. Different unis. 😉

With no data on how long Comrie will be out, you want an estimate of how many points they'll end up with. Not f'n happening. Have fun rereading that one.

Was mad at myself for not staring clearly enough in a post making a point about Comrie by using an example of the general thoughts about Ullmark a point that it wasn't made clearly enough because the football game was the focus & not our discussion. But you now seeming to think that yours truly thought that Ullmark was just an average backup or not even that is mildly annoying considering all the discussions we've had in the past. (And usually being on the same page to boot.) Expected Ullmark to become what he is now with an actual team in front of him. Heck, was the one pointing out that the end of THE losing streak was because Ullmark came back not not because of something mystical the coach had done. Was extremely frustrated that they let Linus walk especially after it was reported they'd offered to match the Bruins offer. That offer should've been the one Adams gave to Linus before hitting FA. Then it would've been the B's that had to beat it, not the other way 'round. (And really don't want to make this a relitigation of the Ullmark departure.) The point of the original post that sent us off into the weeds is, again, Comrie is better than his fancy stats this year say he is. (And, though not previously said, he's likely worse than he historical fancy stats say he was.) IMHO both guys are pretty much Marty Birons. Decent starters on a good team but not top 10 guys (probably not even top 20) & absolutely at the top of the list if he can be your backup. Very few teams have a guy that good as the backup and almost never for long. And further, back to the context of the thread, expecting his being out is a huge part of why this is going to be similar to the rest of the lost decade plus. He's good enough to give them a chance against Florida, though not good enough to necessarily get them the win. He's good enough so that with a reasonable defense & not what we've seen this month (ever since Lyubushkin reinjured or worsely injured his leg in their last win) they will have a reasonable chance to win any game & more importantly won't go into (or remain in) a massive tailspin with a healthy roster. UPL radiates no such warm fuzzies. [Edit: and statistically Ullmark was pretty much an average goalie (aka an average backup) though those of us that watched him knew he was better than that. So, stand by the original comment you took such exception to.]

JFC, am done w/ this discussion at least until the Nills game is over because you are discounting everything we've said over the past few years, and focusing on imprecise words said between plays. Was ALWAYS high on Ullmark. But most everybody bitched that he was just a backup. Expect Comrie will turn out to be similar.

Because Samuelsson coming back was integral to your post commenting on the OP didn't see the need to specifically state that the comment was post-Muel returning. Guess it needed to be stated. Ullmark was essentially an "average backup" until he got to his 2nd year w/ a good defensive team. Expect Comrie is better than we've seen. (And btw, know you know this so it isn't soecifically for your edification, wanted more GTing help than just Comrie; sothis isn't excusing away the lack of fully addressing GTing this offseason.)

Am not saying they'll get to 98 points. (Have never gone there, regardless of what the old man from Pennsyltucky misremembers.) But, if Comrie were still available rather than UPL, they can still generally win 3 out of 5 moving forward once they finally get the monkey off their backs.

Don't know that "completely" is a fair nor accurate adjective but agree w/ the general sentiment. Which is why getting Samuelsson back likely will coincide with ending this streak. Losing him resulted in their 1st (& onlly prior to the AZ game) bad game. It shook them. Getting him back will be a boost.

Read what was written and compare it to the preseason post you apparently have bookmarked. You will get your answer. Btw, wtf does the post you are quoting have to do w/ preseason predictions? Was saying this one felt different before the Bruins & Nucks games. Would expect a fan that hangs on every post to realize that. You might lose the presidency of the fan club if you keep making rookie mistakes like that.

A big part of the D issue is Lyubushkin slid a little after blocking that shot & then has looked noticeably even worse since that extended board battle against Pittsburgh (?). He's been slow & getting knocked off the puck since then & has been as bad as, if not worse than, the little 3. Throw in the F's not really knowing where to be in the D-zone far too often & the D isn't going to be good. And STILL hope they shutdown Buusch for about a week when Samuelsson is back. Having 4 good D plus Jokiharju would be so much better than just having 2-3 + Henri.

Definitely wanted 1 more NHL caliber goalie brought in (and 1 more Lyubushkinesque guy brought in on D) because wanted somebody better & more likely to make it through the season than Anderson. But believed there was a very real chance that Comrie would play the entire year. He doesn't seem to make really large difficult movements and he routinely covers the bottom of the net w/out seemingly straining so there weren't any injuries waiting to happen w/in his game. You can't expect your best D-man to do something you'd expect from a Ristolainen or Zadorov to knock him out for weeks. Am looking forward to Levi's brief stint in a Sabres ini this season and hoping for the minor miracle where he demonstrates he belongs in the NHL. And the next few weeks might show Portillo he has a window to the NHL in this organization as well. Comrie is only under contract 1 more year.