Taro T

Well, considering he's at best 11th on the depth chart at present, he will get that time.

It was more of an off hand comment at the end of a long statement pointing out that they're all older and guys that can help on the leadership front such as Zucker (who was specifically mentioned for having won a SC and having played w/ Tuch before) have been brought it. Specifically mentioned how there is a lot of leadership in the room now. They both also specifically said there are no excuses this season. Post made it seem to have a different flavor than it did hearing it live. Sorry about that.

Fwiw, they held another B&G I at the Fan Fest today. The 2 players taking questions were Tuch and Dahlin (and Biron was the moderator). Based on the way they were talking in the session, am standing by the contention from when this thread was bumped - expect there to be co-captains this season and would not be at all surprised if there are multiple guys (or outside possibly even none) wearing an A along with the captain that isn't wearing a C that night. They both were talking about how there're a lot of leaders in the room and how neither one of them need to stand in front of the team every single game because of how many leaders there are now in the room that can help them out with it.

It is SIGNIFICANTLY bigger than the old one. Hoping it's not so large that it's distracting to those watching up in the nose bleeds. Didn't head up there to check out the view of it from there. There do seem to be more sound dampening panels up in the rafters near the new rood (but that could very well simply be due to noticing them now and not really noticing them in the past) but the speakers are still arranged in the same pattern as before. So, am not overly hopeful that the accoustic issues in the barn have been adequately fixed. (Need hearing protection in our section and people in the 200's claim they can't hear a thing there.)

Not trying to guess who your buddy works for. But pretty sure it was fairly well known that Arizona wanted Kulich when the Sabres drafted him.

And speaking of McDermott being Bellicheatian (minus the soul selling).

He didn't face much, but Ratzlaff looked good too. A Drydenesque game. Didn't have to make many saves, but seemed like when he did have to they were against really good chances. And on the one goal against it seemed the F's got a little lost in coverage during the 4v4.

How did Kevyn Adams hijack Thorny's account? 😉

And the Bills, much like the Cheats used to under Brady, are perfectly content to run long drives and wait for the right opportunity to try for the long strike. If they're going to give you underneath stuff that picks up 8 or 9 yards a pop, take it. You rarely end up in a 3rd down situation that way and you keep your D off the field a bit longer. Force them to take those plays away and then the long ball opportunities open up. Like when a putz like Jaylen Ramsey covers Ty Johnson. (Absolutely love watching Ramsey get torched. Especially after he shoots his mouth off about Allen.) Might want to ask the Titans QB that one. 😉

Kirby Smart? Try Bellicheat. Except for the fact he hasn't sold his soul (as evidenced by 0 SB's yet), there is a lot of Bellicheatian similarities in McDermott. Always has a strong D with a next man up approach that keeps rolling. They were missing the entire middle of their defense (Milano, Bernard, Johnson) for 50 or so minutes last night and gave up all of 10 points. His teams almost always take over the 3rd Q (as you'd mentioned). He has a willingness to walk away from guys that have been core pieces (Poyer, Hyde, Morse) when he and Beane expect they're ready to fall off the cliff. Only missed the playoffs once so far as a HC.

They literally squeaked out the victory against Dallas last year. Minus Dallas fumbling at the goal line, the Fishies lose that one as well.

He wore different ones in the post game interview. Those were more the Grandpa's $2 cheaters for trying to read the menu at Stuckey's.

That psychopath McDaniel wouldn't even admit that Tua had a concussion on the Milano hit. They called it an ankle injury. Had they treated THAT like a concussion, maybe he doesn't get a second major one in less than a week and maybe just getting bounced off a guy's bicep doesn't result in what might be a career ending concussion. Ironically it was Hamlin that "hit" Tua and this hit happened the same week that the psychopath got an extension through '28. The guy that "died" on the field "killed" the Fishies chances this season right when the guy who caused the whole problem got shown the money.

Looked at the article and didn't see anything about college & junior hockey being included in this. 2 Questions. Q1. Are you sure college hockey will be included in this FLO package? Q2. Does this mean college hockey won't still be on ESPN+? Know ESPN+ is still showing a LOT of college sporting events. And was planning on catching a few games this year on ESPN+. (Mainly around tournament time.) If either of those Q's were answered in that article and yours truly missed them, apologies.

And again, see this as an opportunity to get a look at all the Amerks that aren't going to qualify as vet exceptions along with a handful of other prospects. Johnson is firmly in the Amerk mix and will need a lot of things to break his way to be a Sabre coming out of camp. Having a young guy slated to be an Amerk playing in this tournament doesn't seem odd at all, especially for one with all of a single season of professional hockey under his belt. That the Sabres have been in the position that guys in his spot have been gifted an NHL roster spot prematurely for essentially a decade plus is what is odd. (Not for the Sabres - it's SOP. But for most of the rest of the league it's odd.) While realistically he's likely 8th on the depth chart (ahead of Bryson), he doesn't need to clear waivers and they're going to want him playing rather than sitting in the press box in Buffalo. Again, he's very likely an Amerk and an Amerk with only 1 year of pro experience. He qualifies for the tourney and personally would find it odd if he WEREN'T playing in it.

Anecdote, so obviously only a snapshot in time and it could provide a very misleading picture. But in that game that the Amerks got eliminated, there was exactly 1 memorable "Carubba collision" and that was Rosen absolutely destroying a guy just inside the Amerks blue line. Had to do a double take to make sure it was him. It was a hit that Campbell would've been proud of. And it was a legal hit, unlike what many of Campbell's would be today. So, maybe he can.

What's odd about it? The roster is the young Amerks and a handful of others to round out a tournament roster. This is essentially getting the Amerks 3 extra games together. Johnson, unless he has a crazy good camp, is Ra-cha-cha bound to start the year.

It wasn't even that those guys were the wrong ones for Buffalo. It's that each of the GM hires wanted to build a team in a way and had a prototypical preferred player that significantly differed from his predecessor. Keep them being guided by the same team building principles & then Botterill just has to undo the Winnipeg trade, not the O'Reilly one along with ridding themselves of other useful players too. The resets were entirely self-inflicted. They weren't actually necessary in principal.

Easy there, that's PTR's schtick. 😉 But back on point, yeah, it looks like they won't spend once again, but there's still time for that to merely be appearance and not reality. The Aisles grabbed both Boychuk and Leddy essentially out of thin air right before the season kicked off the year the Sabres had their pick lined up to be unprotected. They absolutely were still a discount team last year. But, until the season kicks off and Terry pulls that football away at the last second am going to maintain hope that 2W is just a few weeks away.

The Sabres best run of the past 20 years had co-captains. When the co-captains both left and there was a bit of a leadership void there were rotating captains. Personally could see Tuch the captain at home games and Dahlin the captain at road games. With either Thompson or Cozens wearing the 2nd A any given night. (Maybe T&T at home and they play CD's on the road (again w/ the other captain wearing the 2nd A when not wearing the C).

This one might be worth the dispensation to go back to bourbon just this one time. 😉

Personally, believe the budget constraints have already been lifted, but then read a post like @Brawndo's implying that Adams had a deal for Zegras worked out and Pegula nixed it and realize that belief could be seriously off-base. But also, kind of personally need to believe the constraints are off, because otherwise this whole thing just gets too exhausting. And life in general lately is exhausting enough. This is supposed to be the entertainment / relaxation portion of the day. Am really tired of being left at the end of the day with "it could work." So, please make that one more move and come out of Europe 1st in the Adams (old school Adams, not Kevyn's personal 1 team league 😉 ) and build on it from there. Because if they go on an early season Kreugeresque campaign, doubt that the metrics won't be backing the fact that it's real. And this place could be really fun should that happen.

The bolded is true. But there is one thing that MIGHT work in the Sabres favor (presuming Adams doesn't manage to get one more deal done before they head off to Europe) is that darn near nobody has tried this current approach (bring a bunch of guys up very young and get them all used to playing together and playing at NHL speed getting through to that 1st 200 NHL game threshold while the majority of them are still barely legal to drink if they even are with most of them on ELCs & 2nd/bridge contracts) which is essentially testing a theory that it's games played rather than physical maturity that gets a guy to his "prime" level of play. Nobody else tries it because you almost definitely guarantee yourself a lot of losing seasons getting a critical mass of talented bodies to that 200 game threshold. And a lot of losing necessarily means less fannies in the seats and less concessions and merchandise sold and most owners don't have the hubris to try to ride through all the growing pains. (Most fans don't either.) But Adams & Pegula seem to have had the hubris to see if it legitimately can work when run to it's conclusion. (Those young guys actually getting en masse to & beyond those thresholds.) The cursory view of it says it can't work without nearly everything falling into place because it's only been done extremely rarely in the past decade. That's probably where the smart money should be too. But this team is built significantly differently than other teams have been, so they might not necessarily align with the normal metrics. AND should they bring in a 2W/2C in the next few weeks, the team will be outside those normal metrics anyway. They need Ruff to be A right coach for this squad and they need the goaltending to be what it was overall post January (and ideally what UPL was in January and what Levi was down the stretch which would be even better than that) to realistically have a shot at the playoffs. But if both of those bets pay off, they don't need all that many more of the variables to fall their way to make the playoffs. (in no particular order, good health, obtaining that 2W/2C, guys getting back to their 2023 levels, Byram being the guy he was in the playoffs, the PP being what it should be now that Ellis can't warp it, the new guys fitting in and gelling together, Power elevating towards being a legit #2, Quinn & Benson not having "sophomore" slumps (sophomore in quotes because last year was Quinn's sophomore year but he missed most of it, guys relearning how to play for a coach who expects them to follow the system he has picked out for them over TC rather than October & November, winning the Euro series w/ Joisey to kickstart the year.) Get about 1/2 of those to go their way and they should be in good shape, even possibly with a relatively low payroll. Personally, still expect that Adams true target for really excelling is next year and thereafter. But if the team ends up where it did last year (seriously doubt it will, but we'll see, there's a reason they play the games), doubt he gets the chance to make it to that target. And do believe that he is targeting playoffs for this season. (He targeted them last year as well, but misjudged just how far a young 91 point team really is from the playoffs.)

Ftfy. 😉

RIP Darth.