Taro T

It was your humming "Linus and Lucy" the rest of the day that did you in. 😉

The team equipment managers would have a contract out on the head of whomever proposed that should it actually happen.

Shades of the old short lived Campbell Conference playoff format (which went 2-3-2 & IIRC briefly let the higher seeded team decide whether to have the bookend games or the ones in the middle (might be misremembering that, but could swear they had that option for a year or 2)) in the Laval Cleveland series.

Personally, expect much as others here have said that Pegula was busy paying attention to the Bills the past week or 2. Now that the NFL draft is past, am hoping that we see some changes in the Sabres FO and coaching ranks. (Because the coaching is pretty rank.)

Definitely, they really tighten up on D in the playoffs. But before Weiss and the other one went down, they were playing RS as tightly as they do in the playoffs. And they were seriously rolling. Bringing in Matisse (sp?) and Ron John didn't really get them back to form until Weiss came back and then he reinjured his leg down the stretch but is back again. But will say, after watching them down the stretch, didn't expect them to play as well as they did Friday night. If anyone has ESPN+ but didn't watch that game, they should do themselves a favor and watch it. It was a very physical game and must've been a lot of fun to be in the barn watching. Vinc looked years younger than he actually is, but the D were making his job pretty routine. Shots directed to a corner of the net were soaked routinely by a defender and then the Bandits grabbed the loose balls.

Yes, we DO know it's 14 years. But that was simply a different way of viewing it that really hit home. One more presidential election cycle without a playoff berth and they'll have guys on the roster than weren't even born prior to the streak starting.

Who's he? Guava, Pegula, John?

It TYPCIALLY is. No Spanger nor Sweeting this year. They do still have Weiss, Priolo, Dawson, Robinson, and Martin back there. But those are 2 really important guys (1 of which hasn't been there at all this year) and when the 2nd one went down along with Weiss for a few games is when the 7-0 Bandits started to lose close games. Their D was absolutely lights out on Friday. (Which was a VERY pleasant yet unexpected turn.) There was only a mispositioning on 1 of the goals against, they soaked a ton of shots, and they seemingly gathered every loose ball. They'll need to bring that again this Friday.

Not Amerk related, but just reading that in the same sentence really brought a point home. Helenius is 18, Benson is 19; these guys were in preschool or kindergarden the last time the Sabres made the playoffs. This ####ing streak has to end before they have guys on the roster that weren't even born the last time the Sabres were in the dance.

Well, they're paid for through June, why rush what you don't have to? 🤬

Vancouver ended the year on a crazy good run. They won their last 7 (including last night over the Kin-ig-hit Hawks). In those 7 games, they've only trailed for 3:38 seconds and THAT came in Banditland in a game the Warriors won by 1 (believe it was 14-13, maybe it was 13-12). The Bandits will need to bring their A-game to beat these guys. Was really hoping Ra-cha-cha would find a way to beat them but they got dominated early and Hartley was having serious problems as Vancouver kept getting very high danger chances. It was 9-3 at the 1/2 and the KH's could never get it back to closer than a 3 goal game though they did have a couple of glorious chances to get it back to only 2 but the post was not their friend last night. If the Bandits can get a couple goal (or ideally 3 or 4) lead, it could be that the Warriors would crack under the pressure of actually trailing; but if Vancouver gets a lead, the Bandits will have to really bear down to get back. Should be 2 good series.

Can't stand the Kin-ig-hit Hawks but hoping for them to win in Vancouver tonight. Was at the pasting the Bandits gave them last year in the 1st round. Would be fun to see the Bandits in the bad guys' barn again. (Went to both Bandit-Hawks games this year; fun times.)

Don't know for sure why that is. Would guess it's due in large part to lesser competition.

Have to believe he'd move to Buffalo if he were named the GM. If THAT were the reason they were to decide to give the job to Forton, there'd be no hope left.

They end up on the CW for about 10 or 15 home games per season. (Believe they've had one or 2 road games on, but could very well be misremembering. Have had the free Amerks subscription the past few years, so may be mistaken in believing something that was actually on AHL.tv had been shown over the air.) Guessing the AHL's new broadcast partner doesn't want any playoff games being shown via other outlets. Bummer.

Personally expect that making Forton the GM guts the front office as Karmanos and Ventura and anyone else any good says "screw this."

Speaking as one of the ones (lukewarmly) welcoming that twist in the plot, will say a big part of the reason to be in favor of it is nearly all of the better options don't seem to be realistic. Presonally believe Ruff is enough of a competitor that he truly does want this team to win and that he wouldn't be foolish enough to go along with a move of Adams to the PoHO with Forton becoming the GM. Though he isn't in the front office day to day, he has to be close enough to the front office to see things the way they are and should be. And at least from the true outside looking in certainly seems very apparent. (Realizing the view from outside is never the full picture. But will absolutely have a sinking feeling in the pit of the stomach should Forton get another bump in title &/or responsibilities.)

Agree with a lot of this. The primary disagreement is, personally believe that Adams thought a year ago's team WOULD start winning as it was (it wouldn't contend that year, but it would likely make the dance); his thought / expectation was severely off. And it was off even moreso this season. He made more changes this past season, but not adjusting the coaching staff beyond just the HC and an overreliance on 3 key young(ish) players (Luukkonnen, Cozens, and Samuelsson were all part of the leadership of this team and they all spit the bit through large parts of the year) doomed this effort as well. Hoping he's not the one trying to actually make this year's off-season moves because on a healthy squad we really shouldn't be seeing Benson and Kulich as Thompson's linemates. In an ideal world they're on a 3rd line feasting on other teams matching up with the top 2 lines.

Which is the nice part about having too many prospects to be able to bring all to the big squad. (Darn shame so few seem to be absolute home run can't miss guys; but still they have a bunch that could be 2nd liners or 2nd pairing with seasoning and maybe Östlund, or Helenius, or Poltopov should he ever come to NA, or Wahlberg, or one of the 2 really big Russian D-men or or will surprise.) A good enough prospect or 2 can help sell the slight downgrade in top end guy the other team is getting by going for quantity over quality. There's always somebody ready to take a small step back.

Thanks for the headsup. Was hoping the CW might carry one or 2 of the games this round, but doesn't look to be the case.

Makes sense thought that they'd dump the TV guy if only keeping 1. Radio broadcasters out of necessity do a better job of "painting the picture" of what's happening on the ice.

Is there nothing sacred the Pegula owned Sabres can't ruin?

Slightly off-topic, but if the Sabres hadn't drafted Savoie there's a really good chance they don't have either Benson nor McLeod on the roster who are two of their more useful players and both fill a niche the team hadn't had filled without them.

Well, Housley's available. And if the goal is McKenna ...

There's merit, but ONLY if you've already developed a place where the guys you'll really want to keep at the end of their "option" window will want to stay. IF there's not a chance in heck that they'll stay given their druthers, you CAN'T spend the entirely of that window making up your mind. You HAVE to "exercise the option" and sign that guy a year, or realistically 2 years, before they reach the point the decision on where to stay is theirs. Botterill never twigged to that reality. Perhaps it was because he was always close to the cap overpaying 3rd liners; perhaps he did understand it, but the timing of when Covid hit kept him from acting on that reality; perhaps the Pegulas simply wouldn't let him go that route having been burned on the Leino and Ehrhoff deals (the latter of which only burned them because the rules changed with the CBA changes); or maybe it was for some other reason or a combination of reasons. But the end result was a LOT of very good & good hockey players walked out the door for nothing or for futures after they'd spent their formative years developing into good players in Buffalo. And the other downside of ALWAYS waiting untii the option is ready to expire is you NEVER get a bargain contract unless the player truly loves being where he's at and gives a hometown discount.