Taro T

What jets need to be calmed? Didn't state that the Sabres will trade for him. Said that if they do expect it to happen on day 1 at the draft and do not expect it later than that because he would be able to shut any attempt to trade him 3 days after that.

Poor kid pitched his hissy 1 year too late. Sabres were all in on not blocking prospects until a few weeks ago. 😉

Pretty sure the fascination with Jeannot is due to him being able to play hockey at a good 4th line level and also kick the snot out of guys that have historically been considered to push the Sabres around. Doubt anybody expects him to magically become a good 3rd liner. But, unlike John Scott, who though he was an ASG MVP, made one heck of a mechanical (or was it aeronautical) engineer as a hockey player, he can actually play hockey.

There often is a team or 2 that doesn't hit NHL 0.600 but still makes the playoffs. In the modern era, exactly 1 team (the '70 Habs) hit that mark and missed the playoffs. And that was in a year that ALL the new teams that pretty much stunk were in one division and all the established teams were in the other and the Habs actually tied the Rags for 4th but lost out on tiebreakers, the 1st of which was goals scored so in their final game of the year when it became clear they wouldn't win that game they pulled the goalie trying unsuccessfully to get enough goals to get the tiebreaker over the Rags. 98 points is just below that 0.600 threshold; 99 is just above it. You break 0.600 and you get it; you miss it, you take your chances. The post you replied to was in response to a post saying if the Sabres miss the playoffs Adams is gone. Was pointing out, it depends on HOW they miss, should they. 98 and a miss and he likely gets one final try. 91 and a miss, and it's bye bye Kevyn.

Considering Mittelstadt's 26 and Byram is only 22 and playing a position that takes longer to develop, even if they bring in Danault or Eriksson Ek or the like to round out the top 3C's would still say that TODAY the team is worse off with Byram than with Mitts on it. Because Cozens or Mitts (or maybe even the other C they'd bring in) could slide to W leaving you Tuch, Mitts/Cozens, Peterka, & Quinn as your top 4 W's with Benson, Greenway, & Skinner (at least for another 2 days) rounding out the top 9 with Kulich or Savoie or maybe even Rosen ready to challenge for a spot in the top 9 come December which makes for a very formidible top 9 even if Kane doesn't finally fulfill his childhood dream. Whereas whatever Byram brings THIS year could likely have been supplied by either guys in house or via a lesser cost than a Mittelstadt to bring that in. Mitts for Byram was a 'we've got a whole bunch of guys to fill out the top 9 come '27 when we're really seriously challenging and now we expect we'll have a really formidible top 4 & even top 6 on the back end' that we wouldn't have had then without this deal. IMHO. That trade was made, again IMHO, because in the Sabres view it bolsters the team when it finally gets to its window and as Byram showed in his "new car smell" phase that it won't be much of a step back overall if any in this coming year when the full set of moves on the chess board are completed.

And this is where having a billionaire owner SHOULD be a net positive rather than the net negative it's been for a solid decade. Need to have (and maybe they've already made the case, we just haven't seen the results yet because the changes are too recent) the bright guys like Ventura show just how big the ROI is for spending on analytics and developing better models than everybody else has. It's also interesting that Ventura is 4th on the org chart under Adams but the only VP of those 4.

So, if the Sabres ARE trading for Eriksson Ek expect it to happen draft day and expect 11 going back as part of the package. Because that trade AIN'T happening 3 days later.

Get your frustration at the "we're open to anything" comments. But for a guy that continually talks about honesty being a key value of his, if he does say "we have no intention whatsoever of moving up in the draft" and he stands by his values then if say the Phlyers get the inkling that Buffalo might want the same guy they want then they only have to burn enough capital to move up 2 slots to get their guy whereas they might need to burn a lot more than that to make sure the Sabres themselves don't move up the same 2 slots and still end up ahead of them. Personally, would rather have him use that GM-speak as part of the answer and essentially tell us that he's not looking for a goalie to have Levi beat out and that Skinner is as good as gone than have him tell us he absolutely is or isn't looking at moving up in the draft and giving us nothing at all about the roster itself all the while it might all be 100% pure BS. In other words, prefer his telling us something we could misinterpret (much like the most successful politicians do and the best Fed Chairmen do) rather than flat out lying.

Personally, don't expect Adams gone if they end up with say 98 points and miss the playoffs by a point because they didn't clear the 0.600 threshold by the slimmest of margins. But, didn't expect they were going to fire Granato either, so take that for what it's worth. But, should they struggle to get to 90 points once again and miss the playoffs once again, yep, he's toast. But, unless they have a serious rash of injuries that young teams simply shouldn't be suffering, or the goaltending doesn't hold up due to their youth (a much more likely scenario than the former), can't see this team struggling to get to 90 points. Can absolutely see this team (as currently constructed) not getting in, though personally do believe it's good enough to sneak into the last WC w/ 96-98 points. Which leaves absolutely no room for a couple of key performers having off years nor having a serious rash of injuries, nor the GT not being up to snuff. With the rebuild being at the point it is, can see Adams standing pat with G & D (because he's pretty much told us that's his preference for the past 3 months) but can't see any way there aren't at least 3 changes at F (and maybe 4-5) w/ at least 2 of which we'd consider significant (aka not just swapping out 4th liners). Not convinced the D will stay pat; maybe he makes 1 pseudo-major move, most likely Jokiharju going away and somebody else (w/ no idea at all of whom that would be) coming in to give them what they'd consider 5 legit top 4 D-men.

One thing that doesn't get brought up when discussing Woods absolute dominance when he was at his peak is that many golf courses got lengthened at that time as well. There were guys that could drive like Tiger or putt like Tiger, but nobody had that same combination. The PGA knew that he was ratings gold and adjusted the conditions to emphasise his strengths. Not completely convinced that Woods would've been AS dominant as he was if the courses weren't modified because his driving wouldn't have been such an advantage. So, since that was such an unusual combination - having a great long game and an incredible short game and both were necessary to win, just how deep was the field he was playing against relative to the field Jack was playing against? It seems there are more guys that can do both well today than there were in Tiger's heyday. (Will readily admit to only being a casual observer of golf, so maybe that combination is still as rare as it was, but it sure seems there are a lot more guys that are jacked than there were back in the 90's and early 00's.) And get that the rationale for it was the advances to the equipment happening at that same time that was causing scores to get crazily low. Balls carried a lot farther and the advances in materials science made drivers rocket launchers relative to what they'd been. But, didn't see any of the higher ups crying over that happy coincidence that it also made the most marketable player of his day all that much more difficult to beat.

Yep. Chanting Bob's name right through the US Anthem was awesome. 😒 (Realize you weren't including that in your review, but really don't believe it can/should be taken out of it.)

Not insane, but it would be a huge gamble. Personally expect the deal to be 3 or 4 years. If he can get beyond his one major remaining hangup - he doesn't play lights out (often, if at all) when he hasn't been annointed the clear #1 with no viable competition for that role on the roster - he could be a Vasilevskiy. And he very well could get beyond it, but until he's actually demonstrated that he has gotten beyond it, he hasn't. He's played at that level briefly (when Levi hasn't been around and when they were all but buried). But when they''ve needed him to sustain it when they've actually been within striking distance of the playoffs, he couldn't get it done. Maybe he was battling injury that was never disclosed, but there was nothing in his movement that would suggest that. His slump seemed more mental than physical. Whether the Sabres pay for it, or it comes out of his own pocket, he might be a great candidate for seeing Miller's sports shrink. How many MILLIONS of $'s are on the line for him and are available to him over the next decade + should he get past that 1 final hurdle. That seems like a no brainer. (And if he doesn't see her, wouldn't hurt to see someone with that kind of resume.)

And per Dave Jackson the league ADMITTED they blew the replay on the 1st Barkov goal. The official explanation is that the refs determined that the puck was still JUST on the line when the skate of the player without the puck (Reinhart) lost contact with the blue line. His skate didn't need to maintain contact, it merely needed ANY part of it to be above/on the blue line.

Harvey was the Bobby Orr until Orr came along. Won 6 of the 1st 8 Norris' and was runner up one of those 2 times. Richard scored 50 goals in 50 games. A record that wasn't to be broken in more games for over 20 years and in the same number of game for nearly 40 years. He was Lemieux to Howe's Gretzky in his era. There were guys that were dominant over others from their era; Gretzky, Lemieux, and Orr didn't have a monopoly on it. Can see an argument for him being in the top 6 if the Eulers pull this out (heck, even if they don't) but personally don't see it being a slam dunk that that's his slot.

Again, Black Hawks to Blackhawks. 😉

And that doesn't include guys like Harvey, Richard, Shore, Morentz, etc. So, maybe not even top 10 just yet. But it's really hard to rank guys that weren't even within 50 years of each other.

In ranking all-time greats, IMHO longevity factors in (to a certain degree). Personally can't put him in front of Gretzky, Lemieux, nor Orr in any case and really have a hard time putting him ahead of Howe at this point. (Again, longevity counts for something.) Wouldn't put him ahead of Crosby at this point either (realize that's a big point of the debate); so even w/out including any goalies, wouldn't have him top 5 YET. Could see him being there when his career is in the rear view mirror, just not yet. My 2 cents. YMMV.

Close. He gets 2/3's his remaining outstanding money. That other 1/3 is gone and he gets it over 6 years rather than 3 (provided he's bought out this season as it seems very possible he will be). And, yes, it's up to him and his agent to strike a deal somewhere, but there is no guarantee that he'll be able to get a deal in one of the handful of cities he wants to play in. Sooooo, he MIGHT be better off accepting a trade to some other team rather than just getting bought out. Because if he gets traded somewhere he gets all his money and he gets it in the next 3 years. Unless the Sabres have to throw in some SERIOUS sweetener beyond retaining 50% of his salary (which costs them 1/6 more in actual $'s than a buyout and $4.5MM in cap space for each of the 3 remaining years), that seems to be THEIR best case resolution of the "Skinner situation." No data whatsoever on whether somebody would be willing to trade with the Sabres or not nor just what else (if anything) they'd need from the Sabres to take Skinner off their hands. Will be an interesting next 10 or so days.

Quite often when teams move, the name changes. Nordiques became the Avalanache with their move. Same as Jets becoming Coyotes. Both of which were in your timeframe. (And Whalers becoming Hurricanes.) Back in the 20's the Red Wings started as the Cougars and then in the 30's became the Falcons then Red Wings. And Toronto were the Arenas prior to being the St. Pats prior to being the MLs. Also in the timeframe in question: Chicago changed their name from Black Hawks to Blackhawks sometime in the 80's. The Seals while still in the Bay Area changed from Seals to Golden Seals (and also from Oakland to California). Then became the Barons in Cleveland, then merged with the North Stars in Minnesota and then the Gunds went full circle splitting the Sharks off from the team that soon thereafter moved to Dallas and became the Stars. (The Scouts had a similar saga but not quite as bad. Scouts -> Rockies -> Devils.) The Flames are one of the few that changed location but kept the name. In baseball, the Angels have kept that name from day one (AFAIK) but have gone from LA, to California, to Anaheim, and back to California (might've missed one or 2 changes to where they claim they're from though they started in LA and have been in Anaheim since). The Braves kept the name from Boston to Milwaukee to Atlanta, but the Senators became the Rangers. And pretty sure the Pilots became the Brewers. Expos were still the Expos when they were homeless and ended up the Nationals when they got a new permanent home. Giants and Dodgers kept the names when they went from the right coast to the left coast. (Though those 2 moves predate your question.)

Appreciate the sentiment, but the league has been trying to start slightly later (discounting the Covid effects) in the year to avoid an additional week or 2 of the NFL season (playoff baseball too most likely, but the elephant in the room is the NFL).

And for the 1st time since Murray got punted, July 1 might actually be fun. Not expecting Adams to be making the biggest splashes that day (though still feel there's a legit chance he's going to pursue Kane hard) but do expect him to at least be in the pool that day. That used to be one of my favorite days to be glued to NHL news (that and trade deadline day were always holidays on this side of the border for this kid) but it had become a ho-hum day at best or a day of dread at worst. Now that it will be problematic to pay close attention that day for personal reasons, it'll probably be a lot of fun again. (Here's to hoping at least.)

Yep. Hearing Adams response to the Q today, just don't see how Skinner is a Sabre come training camp.

When he said after last season's trade deadline that they REALLY like the GTing, it put it at 90%+ that would be this coming season's tandem. But he literally moved that to 99%+ this morning. Ruff's comments about figuring out pairings is the only reason to expect that the top 8 D might not be set yet (though w/ the order still to be determined). See 3 - 4 outsiders being brought in this summer but would be shocked if more than 1 isn't an F and wouldn't be surprised at all if they all are F's.

So what on Filly's roster would be the equivalent of 11 & Krebs? Expect Danault or Eriksson Ek would be better value for that, but doubt that returns either.

Thus the reason why players lobby for NMCs.