Taro T

Until Patrick Kane is re-signed in Detroit or ends up elsewhere, am expecting he is still high on Adams radar. Would expect the top 3 lines to look something like: Peterka - Thompson - Tuch Quinn - Cozens - Kane Skinner - New Guy - Benson Those 2 top lines would both be good to very good and would allow that 3rd line to absolutely feast much like the RAV line feasted back when Briere and Drury were here. (Honestly, that 1B line might be better than the 1A line.) Make that 4th line something truly difficult to play against, and it already wouldn't be a picnic with Greenway there and that is a forward lineup that can the them into the playoffs. And 100% would have Skinner (should he be back, and expect he will be) on that 3rd line on day 1. And if he wants to get back onto the top line, let him show he can play within whatever system Ruff determines will work best with this bunch and earn his way back.

And, of course, with the birth of the artist came the inevitable afterbirth ...

Well, if they don't end up bringing in say a Patrick Kane to play in the "top 9," then, yeah, Greenway likely stays in the "top 9." But this team would be a lot better if they can roll a 4th line through.

Yeah, in an ideal world, where there is a new 2W and a new 3C brought it, Greenway deploys at the beginning of the game as a 4W. But see him getting more ice time than the typical 4th liner as he can slide up onto any of the other lines as situations dictate. Also, see him (and the bottom 6C they bring is) as the primary PKer. At the age of 19, Benson could see his ice time diminish in critical situations as could Peterka and Skinner. But, also remember, when he can do so, Ruff likes rolling 4 lines. It's a heck of a lot easier to do that when Greenway is the driver of the 4th line than when last year's Krebs is that driver. And also expect that whomever they bring in for that open C role (whether it be 3 or 4), that Krebs will be given every opportunity to take that 3C role away from the new guy and that the new guy could be a big chunk of that "identity line." Lastly, depending on who that C is and the other 4th line W is, the "4th line" might very well be the 3rd line in terms of ice time and deployment while Krebs-Skinner-Benson/new W end up with the title of 3rd line but actually getting 4th line usage and minutes. Don't get too caught up in who's on the "4th line." Personally, find it more interesting to see who he's deployed with.

Yeah, knowing the league was switching to Fanatics starting next season was on a bit of a binge this year. Have pretty much everything we'd hoped to get (including 1 not worn yet which is kind of going to be this coming season's "new" sweater) except they didn't do a jersey for the Dyngus Day game (which was actually on Dyngus Day's version of Boxing Day, being celebrated the day after DD); had a player all picked out for that one and that sweater would've been SHARP but alas, it wasn't available. Oh well, should one of those come out this year, could possibly buy a Fanatics jersey, but if not don't see any more jersey purchases for quite a while.

Whether he finds 1 remains to be seen, but right after the trade deadline Adams literallly said he wants to add a bottom 6C that wins faceoffs and is very good on the PK. Personally am hoping that guy is the 3C in which case, yeah, Krebs can be pencilled in on the 4th line and if he improves, well great. And if not, there are still guys pushing him towards 13F from below. (And in an ideal world, Krebs is pencilled in as the 13th F, and Greenway has a new C and a new W to help him make that "identity" line.) Personally, wonder if Robinson was getting pencilled into that other 4W slot until that couple of shifts in the Filly game where he and and Olofsson both had their Sabres careers essentially end. If he was, wonder if he's going to be given a shot at beating out whatever journeyman Adams signs for that role or if he's simply going to be some other team's journeyman signed to try to fit in on their 4th line.

Won't speak for @Weave, but personally see this team as being good enough to be in the playoffs but not particularly relevant right now (as Levi is becoming an NHLer) and is being built to be a true contender in year 3 from this year 1 when Levi is established at the NHL level. The item that sealed that belief was the Mittelstadt (entering his prime NOW) getting traded form Byram (entering his prime 3-4 years from now). And expect that Ruff signed on for the 2 years because he believes this team has (or will by the time the off-season is through) enough talent to get into the playoffs and that they can legit compete for the SC next year. And he'll make his decision of whether to stay on as coach or bump up to PoHO (or Special Advisor to the PoHO should things be going swimmingly and Adams gets that role with Karmanos getting Adams title) at that time. At some point the rigors of being the HC has to get old especially for somebody that'll be ~68 by then. And IF the UPL we saw from January into March is the REAL UPL then this team could be a contender this season. It still remains to be seen whether he can sustain that level of play or if the UPL we'll really have is the one we saw in April when Levi was back as the 2nd half of the battery. Would expect it's either something between the 2 or maybe we finally lucked out and that goalie he was in January is who he is. If January UPL is who he really is, well In that case the Sabres will have gone nearly overnight (just over 1 season) from having some of worst goaltending in the entire NHL to easily top 10 and arguably top 5 with both goalies at a stage of their careers where they can get better yet.

Because if Quinn is on the 2nd line and plays like he's hinted he could AND if his chemistry with Cozens gets back to where it was his rookie year, then you have a 1A and a 1B line. And that 3rd line, whomever is on it, ends up absolutely getting true 3rd line matchups as other teams will be gameplanning lines 1A & 1B and taking their chances with the 3rd line.

Which, except for Thompson, aligns pretty much spot on to the Levi timeline. (And pretty much all SC winners have at least 1 vet that's been there forever and is working his way down the lineup but is still useful in that diminished role.)

That's the magic of Patrick Kane. Wasn't high on the idea of getting him last year for several reasons, but he showed in Detroit that he's recovered from the surgeries. He's old enough that he's eligible for an incentive laden contract so using him, they can effectively circumvent the cap (just like the big boys do). It pretty much guarantees buying Skinner out next year as those cap savings would pay Kane's bonuses that would count against next year's cap (unless he's REALLY hit a wall this year or gets injured again, in which case Kulich or Savoie get their mid-season call up). And really don't see Adams altering the D nor G lineups, so the only remaining holes to fill that will likely be addressed is the "identity" 4th line. That is easily doable even if Kane is getting close to what he'd actually be worth and not getting an incentive laden deal.

Which is why it's important for Adams to bring in another 2nd line W and a legit 3C. You do that, and your top 2 lines are set (Peterka - Thompson - Tuch & Quinn - Cozens - New Guy) while Skinner ends up with Benson and legit 3C so he has players that don't leave him on an island but also gives him the opportunity to face the other team's 3rd pairing and either 2nd or 3rd line. Prime feasting mode for a guy that often creates on his own. Being on the 3rd line with guys that have demonstrated an ability to play well at this level (as opposed to Krebs and say a Jost) should work for him. Heck, people forget that in October way back when he was clicking with Johanssen. And that allows Greenway to be a key piece of building an Aisles style 4th line. (And he can and would get bumped into the middle 6 when the situation called for it.)

It's June and ONLY feels like 102F in Houston. Be glad you caught a low humidity day. The heat index being over 110F this time of year isn't unusual. And come July and August 95F w/ 95% humidity is fairly standard. Which puts the heat index up over 118. (But Buffalo's weather sucks. Yeah, right.)

Thing is, there's something oddly zen about the last Canadian SC winner being the Habs having pretty much their very last hurrah (don't count the weird Covid season where they got smoked by the Bolts as that was the only good playoff team they faced that run) and in a year that they needed OT to win ~2/3's of their 16W's and them beating Canada's literal golden haired boy who had just moved 4 years prior to LA LA land with the series turning on an illegal stick used by the goon that was sent to LA along with the golden haired boy to be his on-ice body guard. (Wtf did McSorley of all people need an illegal stick? He wouldn't have scored with a banana stick like from a jai alai game.) So many wild story lines all converged in that series back in '93. (Including LA needing a minor miracle to get past Canada's other original 6 team the round prior.) Eventually another Canadian based team will win the SC. It might even happen this year, but personally doubt it unless the refs call the series EXTREMELY tightly giving McDavid and crew the PPs they'll likely need to be regularly getting pucks past Bobrovsky. But it'll be sad to have all that was the '93 playoffs fade from memory. (AND had either LaFontaine not been broken in the last game against the B's OR had Muckler been smart enough to play a healthy Hasek against the Habs rather than Fuhr with a bad knee; then it might've been Buffalo's year. Which would put the last Canadian team to have won the SC back to the '90 Eulers.)

It did. But even when they were putting those movies out as a video tape boxed set, that movie was called "Star Wars." The only place that "Episode IV: A New Hope appeared was at the beginning of the crawl after both "A long time ago in a galaxy far way" followed by "STAR WARS" had gone away. Neither was a part of the crawl. And as you are well aware, the other 2 in that trilogy were simply called "The Empire Strikes Back" and "the Return of the Jedi." Their logos had VERY small outlines of the words Star Wars around the boldly proclaimed main title. But nobody called them Star Wars - The Empire Strikes Back or Star Wars - The Return of the Jedi. They were simply the Empire Strikes Back and the Return of the Jedi.

The dumb part was giving him absolutely all the $'s he could have hoped to get AND a full NMC. Give him $6MM/yr and a full NMC or eat the poop sandwich that was the $9MM/yr for 8 years and give him a partial NMC where he can't be waived to Ra-cha-cha and can block a trade to only 5-10 teams.

Of course they aren't a soccer team, and their ownership knows it. They aren't trying to TM Utah SC nor Utah FC. Sheesh. They're trademarking Utah HC. 😛 Which, btw, is, as you state, idiotic.

Hard to get behind a guy that can't spell his own name right. EVERYBODY KNOWS that starts with a "Y." 😉

Personally, see the issue with Jokiharju and his perception is that 1st off, Granato loved him some Jokiharju, which kept putting him in roles he shouldn't have been in. He was not a good partner for Power as they both had similar weaknesses and way too often Don would pair Henri with Dahlin whom he had absolutely no business being paired with. (Or, he shouldn't have been paired with him through 2/3's of Ras' ice time. When Ras was out against the other team's 2nd and 3rd lines, sure let Henri get ice time. But he absolutely shouldn't have been out against the other team's top line.) If Power ends up on the top pairing with Dahlin, sure, play Henri with Byram and let him be the 4. If Power isn't on the top pairing (and personally expect Adams wants Ruff to at least look at a Byram Dahlin pairing) then put either Samuelsson or Clifton with Power and let Henri be the 5. But, had Joker not been getting forced into roles he wasn't particularly well suited for, he'd still be viewed more in the light he was when he 1st got to Buffalo and Scandella was his partner. The true crime of trading Marco for a 4th wasn't just that Moe-ray-all flipped him for a 2nd; it was that "good Jokiharju" was traded away that day too. If you have a pairing that works, regardless of where the 2nd guy on the pairing fits into the pecking order on paper, keep it together as long as you can. D-pairings can be very fickle and if you have something that works, don't throw it away just because. Jokiharju was regularly getting called the Sabres best or 2nd best defender back then. Haven't heard him called that in quite some time.

Pretty friggin' egregious typos from back in a time when there were actual editors, typesetters, and people that reviewed what the typesetters actually set. Again, was somebody drunk that day?

Agree. And, again, just going by what Adams has stated, he's very happy with the D and he's happy with the G. He has publicly stated he wants to bring in 3-5 pieces at the F ranks (depending upon whether one is expecting the C he wants to bring in to be a part of the 4th line's "identity" or on the 3rd line). He's said he'd be willing to use some of the prospects and/or picks to make that happen if such a deal would "make sense." (Not sure if his words were make sense or just something to that effect.) Which is why them trading for a Cirelli would seem likely (trading prospects/picks/& or a young guy could make sense for a bonafide 3C that still has term and won't cost as much as the 1C or 2C) and why Kane is likely still on their radar (he upgrades the middle 6W's and doesn't cost ANY of Adams' precious futures).

If so, you didn't read the article. "The Buffalo Braves today" is literally the 1st line of the article under the headline of "Top Sabre Draftee Is a Goaltender."

From that angle, the puck could be in the net or out. If it's near ice level, yes, it is clearly in. If it's about 9" off the ice, it very well could be on the line or not even to the line. Really not sure why the NHL hoards the in-net camera views. Letting people see those would take a lot of air out of debates on whether a puck is in or not.

Pretty sure the term originated with the NFL in the 70's when 3 multiteam scouting entities merged together to have one huge combined multiday scouting event. Presumably it's called a "combine" because the teams are combining their efforts and everybody has access to the same physical data testing results. When the NHL started their version of a scouting combine in the '90's, they went with the same name.

Did the editor &/or typesetter have a liquid lunch that day? Buffalo Braves, Stanely Cup, a few other suspected ones too.

Depends on whether UPL regresses any or not. If he regresses, then Levi darn well better be ready to be the starter at least 45% of the time and likely more. IF the goaltending regresses, they might need all that you've been mentioning JUST to get back to barely missing the playoffs with a record that should be 7 or 8 points out if not for a woeful Eastern Conference. If UPL stays at the level he was in January - March and Levi plays like he did January on then they might not need any more than that to get in. REALLY hoping Adams doesn't roll the die on the goaltending again but fulling expecting him to do so. (And would be fine with that dice roll one season from now as we'll have another full season of seeing how those 2 are maturing. (Presuming UPL &/or Levi doesn't deficate himself this year. Should that not be the case, well ...)