Taro T

With the exception of goaltending & C's ready to play TODAY, Adams has been doing a reasonable job of at a minimum attempting to, and at best, actually addressing team needs. Hoping he learned from Botterill's mistake of wasting the cap space freed up when Berglund quit. Edit: Though his "not blocking" the kids remains a bizarre attitude as it isn't blocking them to slot them into roles they are actually capable of rather than push them into situations they aren't ready for yet.

Will be interesting to see which young goalie bumps down to Cincy when Anderson gets healthy. If Houser can do anything at all, UPL better have his bags packed.

While the outcome definitely stunk, it was still fun to be at for the most part. In the 2nd & 1st 13 or so minutes of the 3rd they did a much better job of taking away space from the Wings than they were doing on the road trip. They also were doing a better job of having somebody in front of the net but aren't where they were on that front prior to the road trip. Darn shame Cozens' deflection early in the 2nd didn't go in. Catching a break like that might finally get him to stop gripping the stick so tight. That they were playing a very bad Detroit team & couldn't hold onto the lead late is frustrating. R2 Rou2 continued that really good play around the other team's net. Really want to see him in Asplund's role on the top PP unit. He won't be great at the screens, but neither is Asplund, but expect he'll be OK at that. But his hand - eye coordination is fantastic & he'll deflect a lot of pucks in & he'll get to a lot of trash other guys aren't quick enough to get. Missed the 1st goal of the night as the beer line was very slow. They're still having issues w/ their scanners & if the building ever fills back up again the concession lines will be brutal. That 2nd Wings goal highlighted the danger with trying that high pressure coverage, the Wings did a lot of crossing up high & eventually Okposo lost his man which set up the tic-tac-toe passing as Sabres got out of position trying to cover for the breakdown. Nothing really to say about that 3rd Detroit goal other than, wow, was Dahlin ever on his heels. If he's going to stay in the lineup, and he will, they have to let him play with Hagg preferably or Pysyk. He needs to have somebody he trusts to cover should he step up & miss the play. He has to have confidence he can step into the skater & win the battle. He doesn't have that at all now. Tokarski played well & deserved a better fate. Looking forward to attending the Eulers game to watch the magician. Been a while since seeing him in person. But that game is going to be ugggggly.

Nah. They'll play well tomorrow night. Being on home ice & getting the matchups will help. Hope they come back w/ Tokarski. Anderson seemed a bit off in the last game especially on the 2 Hertl goals; can't let him run out of gas.

How much does that # change when goals scored w/ the goalie pulled (both for & against) are removed? That adjustment likely significantly alters that #.

Personally, expect he goes to W for 2-3 games when Mittelstadt comes back (presuming the other 3 guys currently playing C stay healthy), and if he has some confidence back stays there for a while & if not, he gets to room w/ his old teammate somewhere over near the Dinosaur BBQ.

Would like to see him w/ Hagg for a few games. He's the closest thing that they have to a defensive D-man. Guess the fairy dust Granato used to make the improbable pairing of Butcher & Dahlin work finally wore off. Too bad. They need some sort of unlikely pairing / grouping besides Thompson to C to pan out.

If something doesn't change soon, it very well could. But personally would be surprised if he's sent down before Mittelstadt comes back & also before he gets another crack at wing.

There needs to be a real GM before there is a real coach. Maybe Adams & Granato are those. Jury remains out. Have to hope they are because this walk in the desert reaches Bills levels of longevity if they aren't.

You & the Vegas GM both. Amazing the effect a slow start can have on one's resolve.

Watching Eichel play was worth the price of admission. That's in the past now. It's chicken & egg as to who wanted Eichel & Reinhart out of here 1st, management or the players. The players wanted to be here if not reloading; management saw a need for a reload but wanted to keep them if they WANTED to be here though they weren't seen as the right guys to be leaders. It didn't have to be a divorce, but that was the cleanest way forward for all involved. Adams has a lot of good not quite ready talent, draft capital & cap space at his disposal. If he does this right, he can have this team at least to an NHL 0.500 & maybe even to a DeLuca 0.500 as soon as next year. They could be legit playoff worthy as soon as the following year. If he does it wrong, we watch them continue to tread water at the bottom of the pool. They have to find a good stop gap goaltending fix at a minimum to move in the right direction. While one or more of the goaltending prospects may be ready in the near future, it'd be foolhardy to expect any WILL be ready in the next 3 years & a piece needs to be brought in the fill that role until then. If one is ready sooner, great, they've got a tandem & if 2 are ready sooner, great, there's trade capital. Have no faith Adams can get that part right. He hasn't in 2 attempts yet. But am hoping he can get it right.

Both teams benefitted. Per Puckpedia, the Aisles are now just over $2MM under the cap, so they are banking some cap now which they couldn't do with Boyckuk's ghost still around. And the Sabres now can afford to send league minimum salaries back to the AHL when injured guys come back & might even be able to trade Miller or Eakin at the deadline w/out major cap gymnastics. And all for somewhere between $500k-1,500k. Win win. That 8th round pick will head to the Aisles when Johnny retires officially. The Aisles might even play nice and swap an 8th rounder back. 😉

He's rather young, especially relative to this board's demographics. So he doesn't have memories of Perreault, LaFontaine, Gare, nor Hawerchuk. He likes who he likes.

When the thread was started, the Sabres had not announced that Krebs was Ra-cha-cha bound. They've also made it sound like his stay in Ra-cha-cha might not be very long.

Great shot by Okposo. Even better screen by Girgensons. --‐---------- Faaaack.

Thus the next word of the title "trade." 😉

Kind of surprisingly, especially after seeing a bit of him in Filly, hope they don't trade Hagg but actually re-sign him. That opinion could change as the season progresses, but at least before this road trip he's been playing well & Jokiharju can't be their elder statesman back on D next year. Won't be too broken up if any of the others on your list go away. They don't likely pencil into next season's lineup.

Now that they have Tuch, they might literally have their 3 best scoring forwards all out on IR. (Suppose that was true when Eichel was here this season, but he was never suiting up again for the Sabres. And technically Olofsson isn't on IR but it's getting close to a week that he's been out, so effectively ...) Granato's not getting anything handed to him.

He can, but hopefully he doesn't. 😉

Pretty sure the Sabres will send them an 8th rounder when Boychuk officially retires.

What does the Sabres roster in 2013 or 2014 have to do with teams (or in this case the specific example of A team, the '15-'16 Loafs) undergoing a "mini tank?"

Fair enough. 🍺

Htf is Vegas weather better for a ginger than Buffalo's is? He'd better start bumping the annual skin cancer checkups to weekly after he touches down from the plane. 😉

He's being given credit for holding out for Krebs & for seeing the need to move on from Eichel. Am willing to give him credit for the former, but don't agree that the latter is worthy of credit. Not sure that retention being a non-starter did actually keep offers off the table. Wasn't on the phone/ in the room, so don't know how literal the term "non-starter" was. You seem to believe he cut people off without even hearing them out. IMHO, it was likely more of a he hears them out & then reiterates "that's nice, but we're not going down that road, now let's hear what you've got for a full $ Eichel. Star player chips are stuck on a container ship off Long Beach & aren't available for a few months. We're not lowering the $'s." 😉

Not sure the bolded is clear. Might you expound? 🍺